Page 3373 - Week 08 - Thursday, 23 August 2012
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I commend the bill to the Assembly. I would also like to acknowledge the work that has been done by the Commissioner for Public Administration, Mr Andrew Kefford, and Ms Liesl Centenera, who have put an incredible amount of work into making what is an inadequate piece of legislation so much better, to the point where we have Australia’s leading expert on these matters saying it is the best legislation in the country. Congratulations to both of you, and I thank other members for their contributions.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Bill agreed to in principle.
Detail stage
Bill, by leave, taken as a whole.
MS HUNTER (Ginninderra—Parliamentary Leader, ACT Greens) (12.29), by leave: I move amendments Nos 1 to 3 circulated in my name together [see schedule 3 at page 3546].
The Greens have three relatively straightforward amendments, and I will speak only briefly. Firstly, the Greens do not agree that there should be a regulation-making power that allows the executive to make an exemption from the Public Interest Disclosure Act. I cannot think of a circumstance where an entity should be exempted, but accept that it might be conceivable that a case could come up. The amendment proposed is a compromise that ensures the parliament agrees with any proposed exemption before it can commence.
The second amendment addresses a concern that currently the bill only provides for a disclosure to “describe” the wrongdoing to the media or an MLA and the Greens were concerned that should a person provide evidence of the wrongdoing they may be going beyond a description and therefore lose the protections offered by the act. This amendment allows a discloser to provide supporting information if they do provide information to a journalist or MLA so that they can have some confidence about whether or not the accusation is actually true and how to proceed. The amendment also limits what can be provided as a balance to the absolute protection from defamation.
Finally, the last of the amendments reduces the time in which the minister must provide a report of the commissioner to the Assembly. The Greens believe that 15 days is too long and given that the process will have inevitably taken a considerable period of time before we get to the report stage we do not believe that the minister should be able to sit on a report for potentially many months.
MS GALLAGHER (Molonglo—Chief Minister, Minister for Health and Minister for Territory and Municipal Services) (12.31): The government will be supporting all three of Ms Hunter’s amendments, largely for the reasons that Ms Hunter has outlined. They are minor in nature. Amendment No 2 provides more detail and protection
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