Page 2194 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 9 May 2012
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clearly a wrong application of the sub judice rule. When you read what is said about sub judice in the standing orders, in the Companion to the Standing Orders and in those other publications that inform our standing orders, it is quite clear that the rights of the Assembly are paramount.
I refresh your memory about continuing resolution No 10. It says:
Subject to the discretion of the Chair—
which I am now dissenting from—
and to the right of the Assembly to legislate on any matter or to discuss any matter …
And this is what we are here to do today. We are discussing what the Canberra Liberals see as the failure of the bail system. There is a present case which shows the substantial failure of the bail system and which leaves members of the public, police and prosecutors completely confused about how we should oversee the administration of justice in this place.
You are saying, Madam Deputy Speaker, that we cannot discuss it here in this place. It can be discussed everywhere else, it can be discussed in the columns of the Canberra Times, it can be read by anyone who chooses to log onto the Supreme Court webpage and read the decisions of the justices in these multiple cases. But you are saying that it cannot be discussed in this place. This is on the public record. These are resolved matters.
It is impossible for us to do our job, being so constrained by your ruling. It is an unreasonable ruling which would set a precedent of substantial constraint in the future, and that is why we have to dissent from your ruling.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for Police and Emergency Services and Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development) (11.22): Madam Deputy Speaker, your ruling is a correct interpretation of continuing resolution 10. Continuing resolution 10 is clear and unambiguous. It says:
Cases in which proceedings are active in the courts shall not be referred to in any motion, debate or question.
It goes on to clarify further:
Criminal proceedings are active when a charge has been made or a summons to appear has been issued.
Madam Deputy Speaker, your ruling does not mean that Mrs Dunne cannot raise concerns in this place about the operations of the Bail Act and does not mean that she cannot refer in general terms to certain instances or circumstances that she believes highlight her argument. But Mrs Dunne is seeking to go beyond that, and that is why you have ruled in the manner you have.
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