Page 2486 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 17 June 2009
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different roles performed by the executive and the Assembly in our system of government.
What is the argument that is being put forward by those who seek to censure or in some way admonish the Minister for Planning? The argument seems to be that you should have shown up to tell us about a decision that you had not taken so that we could scrutinise the nature of a decision you had not yet taken.
The role of the Assembly is to scrutinise decisions made by the executive. The role of the executive is to make the decisions, responsibility for which is given to the executive under the self-government act. The minister, at the time of being called, had not made any decision in relation to that development application. The only course of action he had taken was to ask the planning authority to provide him with the documentation so he could determine whether or not he should exercise his powers and determine the application himself. It is so fundamentally misconceived that this minister should be criticised because he refused to allow a scrutiny of a decision that he had not yet taken. What an absurd proposition! But that is exactly the proposition that is being put by those opposite and those on the crossbench today. It is so fundamentally flawed.
It is entirely legitimate for the minister to indicate to the committee that he believes it would be inappropriate for him to attend and to answer questions about a matter that is before him for a potential decision. It would anticipate the matters that are given to him, and to him alone, under the planning act to determine. How could he feasibly and fully answer questions about a decision to consider calling in a proposal without potentially pre-empting his own statutory decision-making processes?
All that would have been served by the minister attending the committee would have been for the minister to be put in a position where he would have to say, “I cannot answer that question because it would pre-empt my decision.” If the committee feels that they were going to get some other information, what could it conceivably have been—about how a call-in process works? Well, for heaven’s sake, read the Planning and Development Act. It is quite clear how a call-in process works. So it could not have been that.
It could not have been “how does a call-in operate?” because that is clearly spelt out in the act. You do not need to call a minister to understand that. It could not have been about the details of the project or the amount of money that the government was spending on the project that was before the minister for a potential decision because the Minister for Health is responsible for that. So what would the questions have been about? The questions would have been: what factors, what issues, what matters are you going to bring to consideration of potential call-in of this project? It would be a complete pre-empting of the minister’s responsibilities to make these decisions under the act.
This is where we see the Assembly trying to inject itself into the executive decision-making processes. It is not for the Assembly and its committee to try and pre-empt or second guess or even direct a minister in the exercise of his statutory functions. It is the role of the Assembly to scrutinise those decisions after the decision
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