Northern Territory Second Reading Speeches

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STATUTE LAW REVISION BILL 2005

Bill presented and read a first time.

Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a second time.

The main purpose of this bill is to make consequential amendments to various Northern Territory laws that follow on from the passage of the Health Practitioners Act in 2004. The bill also updates superseded references, corrects typing errors and omissions, and clarifies ambiguous terminologies in the affected acts and subordinate legislation. None of the amendments constitute substantive changes in government policy or programs. The consequential amendments to affected acts and regulations that follow on from the enactment of the Health Practitioners Act 2004 and the Veterinarians Act 1994 remove the confusion surrounding references to persons in certain occupations and professions regulated by both of those acts.

In essence, the principle adopted is that for consistency of approach the amendments will ensure that cross references in affected acts and regulations will now be worded so that they are cross references to persons entitled to practice in the occupations and professions referred under the Health Practitioners Act 2004 and the Veterinarians Act 1994. Thus, for example, a dentist will only be classified as a dentist for the purposes of the Education Act if the person has a current entitlement to practice as a dentist in terms of the Health Practitioners Act 2004.

I now describe some of the more significant or obscure corrections made by this bill. The first comprises a number of amendments to the mental impairment provisions of the Criminal Code. Section 43Z of the Criminal Code deals with the making of supervision orders in cases involving mental impairment and unfitness to be tried. The section is to be amended to remove the confusion surrounding cases of persons with mental impairment by specifying when a supervision order shall be made or when a person is liable for supervision. Other minor amendments to the mental impairment provisions of the Code correct a grammatical error in section 43ZN and update wording used in current section 412(3) to accord with reforms made by the enactment of the Criminal Code Amendment (Mental Impairment and Unfitness to be Tried) Act 2002.

The bill also makes several amendments to the Local Government Act. The purpose of these amendments is to achieve parity between municipal councils and community government councils. This is done by removing the word ‘municipal’ from the phrase ‘municipal council’ in many provisions of the act. The effect is that the definition of ‘council’ which covers both municipal and community government council then applies.

Additionally, section 92 of the Local Government Act is to be amended so that it is clear that in addition to the out of pocket expenses referred to in the current section 92(2), councils may, in respect of legal action for unpaid rates, also recover court costs, solicitor’s costs and enforcement costs.

Section 16 of the Poisons and Dangerous Drugs Act provides for the supply of a poison specified in a Certificate of Registration to a person who is authorised under the act to supply or administer that poison to another person. The section is amended by inserting the words ‘or and animal’ after ‘another person’. This amendment will remove a significant handicap to veterinary surgeons in their practice by correcting an omission which currently prevents manufacturers and wholesalers from legally supplying vets with certain poisons.

The bill also amendments the Energy Pipelines Act so that it is clear that a pipeline may be owned by someone other than a person with a licence under the act. In essence, this is done by more simply stating the purpose of section 59 which is that of ensuring that pipelines do not necessary belong to the owner of the land. Under the act, a licence is required to construct a pipeline or to operate a pipeline, but not to own a pipeline. The amendment takes into account situations where the actual owner of a pipeline may not have a licence to construct or operate the pipeline.

Finally, the bill corrects an error in section 40 of the Wills Act. The Wills Act 2000 was very closely modelled on a national bill developed under the authority of the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General. An error in the model has been identified in the course of the development of the Queensland Succession Amendment Bill 2005. Stated broadly, the objective of section 40 is to provide that the children of a beneficiary under the will shall share in that person’s inheritance if that beneficiary does not survive the testator by 30 days. The policy objective is that they would take the same share of the estate that they would have taken of their parent’s estate. Unfortunately, the provision was drafted so that the share is described as being the share they would have taken of the testator estate. In many circumstances, there would be no such share. Accordingly, the amendment provides that the references to the testator’s estate are to be replaced by references to the parent’s estate. As this is a fundamental drafting flaw, the amendment is to have retrospective effect to the time of the commencement of the Wills Act in 2001.

Madam Speaker, that concludes my explanation of the bill, and I table the explanatory statement which accompanies the bill. I commend the bill to honourable members.

Debate adjourned.

Continued from 12 October 2005.

Ms CARNEY (Opposition Leader): Madam Speaker, the Attorney-General and the Chief Minister will be delighted to know that I am not going to ask any questions about this legislation, notwithstanding that it is my right and, in fact, the right of any member of parliament in our Westminster system. I know it rankles members of government for anyone to ask them a question about anything, or to challenge them about anything; however, some of us take our jobs more seriously than others.

The Chief Minister, when in opposition, always got up on her soapbox and had a go at how anti-democratic the CLP was, and she would go on and on and on. My, things have changed! This is not an individual. Obviously, I think she is the worst Chief Minister that the Northern Territory has ever had! I think she is the worst member of parliament that the Northern Territory has ever had because she and some of her members on the other side have a fundamental difficulty with being questioned or challenged.

Maybe that is why someone leaked some documents to us. I know that staff up there are not happy. That is doing the rounds in Darwin in Labor and CLP circles …

Members interjecting.

Madam SPEAKER: Order!

Ms CARNEY: Clearly, the Chief Minister is worried; Hendo is looking over her shoulder. Where is Hendo? Oh, he is not even here!

Members interjecting.

Madam SPEAKER: Order, order!

Ms CARNEY: This is the bloke who wants to be the next Chief Minister. It was very symbolic that the lights went out earlier this week! The lights are going out on the Chief Minister - and bring it on, I say, because the member for Wanguri would be a much more entertaining opponent. I do not know the Chief Minister well – why, should I? In substance and guts, the member for Wanguri would always make for more of a challenge.

Interestingly, the member for Wanguri does not enjoy being challenged or asked about anything either - in fact, he gets very twitchy when he is challenged. No doubt, staffers would be concerned about that. Although I have not heard too much about Hendo's staff. The Chief Minister's staff, particularly on the fifth floor, are less than happy. I can well understand why. I can understand why because I notice there have been various changes and so on. No wonder they are unhappy. Perhaps the Chief Minister deals with them in the same way she deals with me when they question her - when they exercise their fundamental, democratic right to ask a question or to challenge and prod and say: 'Well, have you thought about this? Perhaps we can do it a different way'.

Madam Speaker, it is not for me to speculate, but I just make that observation in the context of the outrageous suggestions made by the Chief Minister and her friend, the Attorney-General, only a few minutes ago when we were discussing a bill that the opposition supported. If you want to go through it Chief Minister, then rip into it anywhere, any time, because I know the shortcomings of various legislation that is presented in this parliament, and I know that I have a democratic right to talk about it in this House. I know it rankles the Chief Minister, and you can go on and on about it until you have no staff left, but we will keep doing it because that is the very important job we have.

Now, returning to the bill, this is the Statute Law Revision Bill 2005. A lengthy bill, for obvious reasons. The Chief Minister and some of her friends will not appreciate why it is a lengthy bill, but it is a very straightforward one, and for that reason it is supported.

Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, I have some questions that I would like to ask, and because this is going to the committee stage, I may refrain from making any further comment at this stage. I certainly would like to comment on changes that have come before us this morning, which is under the new Part 8 – amendment number 6.4 - which, in the bill you put forward to us originally, Amendment of Local Government, section 12. I would like to leave my comments to the committee stage.

Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, very briefly I want to repeat what I said when I spoke to that last point of order. We do bring legislation to this place. We are so happy to give briefings. We are very happy to have debate in this place but, please, I say to members, get those briefings before this legislation comes back in here. We are only too happy to give all information that we can about the legislation that is here and then, based on good information, we can have debate in his place. To say that the government does not want to have that debate is simply wrong.

As Opposition Leader, I insisted that every member had briefings on every item of legislation that came into this place, as is the duty and the responsibility of members. We are seeing two examples here where, with that legislation, we are not being asked to give those briefings. I appeal to members: we are only too pleased to give briefings, please take up those opportunities. Do what is the right and responsibility of an opposition and Independent member.

Dr LIM (Greatorex): Madam Speaker, I was not going to speak before, but the Chief Minister is really spreading a lot of furphies. I have sought briefings from ministers. It takes months to organise a briefing - months …

Members interjecting.

Ms Carney: Are you accusing my colleague of lying?

Madam SPEAKER: Order! Leader of the Opposition!

Dr LIM: It is quite an exercise. It takes a lot of time and effort to secure a briefing. It really is difficult. If the Chief Minister stands up here and says: 'Ask for a briefing, we will fix it up for you', then she should make sure she tells all her ministers and departments to provide briefings in a timely fashion. Otherwise, she should sit down and zip her lip, because what she is doing is wrong.

Mrs BRAHAM (Braitling): Madam Speaker, I will not make any comments on briefings. I have already told the House how we were treated last time we had a briefing.

It is interesting to see the amendments the minister is going to introduce this morning. Our research officer highlighted the changes to the Local Government Act and the section in particular that changed: 'The municipal council shall rate all land within its municipality' to 'A council must rate all land within the council area'. When our research officer rang the office of the minister to check if they realised what the implication of that huge policy shift was, they did not seem to know anything about it.

So we contacted the Northern Land Council and they were quite dismayed that there should be such a huge shift in policy to ask community councils to rate land which was Aboriginal land anyway and, in fact, could not be rated. I know they have spoken to your officer, minister …

Dr Toyne: We have withdrawn that.

Mrs BRAHAM: … and I realise now that you are going to delete that particular section. However, I want to say to you that with all the staff you have up there, it is terrible that that was not picked up when the bill was written. That is a huge shift in policy but for some reason or other it was not picked up - I can see your advisors speaking to you - otherwise it would not have been in the original bill. I am sure it was only highlighted to you due to the simple fact that we had done our homework and saw it.

Minister, be aware that even though we are not lawyers, we do take these bills seriously, and this particular section would have created a huge outcry throughout the Territory if you had have gone ahead with it. All I can say is that we will support the fact that you are amending it, but it highlights to me also that you need to look very carefully at some bills that are presented to you because I am sure that was an oversight. That was a decision which, if left in there, would have had crucial ramifications right across the Territory.

Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Speaker, I cannot say how delighted I am that we have finally after all these years brought in a Statute Law Revision Bill and had a spirited debate about it. I cannot believe this. It is fantastic.

I do not think I can thank members for their support because I am not sure whether they are supporting it. Perhaps the best thing I can do to resolve some of the issues that have been raised, and I am not for a moment challenging the right of the members to raise these issues, is to explain the Statute Law Revision Bill process.

It is an ongoing, routine process whereby each government agencies which has legislation will audit the legislation for any spelling errors, or inconsistencies in the wording, or anything that is to do on the face of the bill itself. What it cannot be allowed to be is a policy shifting change to any of the acts that it deals with. It is an understanding amongst all members of parliament that we are not going to present a Statute Law Revision Bill which embodies a significant policy issue. They are simply housekeeping changes to legislation.

As Attorney-General, I receive the collated bill which has come from each of the agencies. In the case of the local government amendment, which has been referred to by the members for Nelson and Braitling, there was certainly an inadvertent change which would be a very significant policy change if that was allowed to occur. We certainly do not want to have a situation where councils 'must' compulsorily rate no matter where they are in the Northern Territory. That is certainly what the word 'must' means to me. It was picked up by the agency eventually but not before I had introduced the bill into the last sittings.

I regret that but I have to point out that this process depends on the individual action of the agencies of government. I am simply providing a compiled bill to the House.

I will be withdrawing the amendment to the Local Government Act because it simply is not a policy decision that any of us have made. It is not a policy decision that the Minister for Local Government has contemplated at any stage leading to this legislation. It will be withdrawn. There will be no change in policy embodied in this bill before us. I hope on that basis we can proceed to complete its passage through the House.

Motion agreed to; bill read a second time.

 

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