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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-09-24 Daily Xml
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Police Disciplinary Tribunal

Mr GARDNER (Morialta) (15:16): My question is to the Minister for Police. What mechanism will replace the functions of the Police Disciplinary Tribunal when it is abolished?

The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Justice Reform, Minister for Planning, Minister for Housing and Urban Development, Minister for Industrial Relations) (15:16): I am grateful for the question because it actually raises a very important issue, and that is about probably two or more years ago, if I remember correctly, the minister for police—who at that time was known to us simply as the member, our parliamentary secretary—undertook a very lengthy—

Mr BELL: Point of order, Mr Speaker. There is no clock and knowing the minister's words, it could go for 14 minutes, sir.

The SPEAKER: Thank you. Our mistake.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I will assume that was an indirect allusion to me having some similarities with the member for Bragg, and I accept that from that side as a compliment. A while ago the minister undertook a piece of work leading up to the eventual passage last year of legislation to establish a civil and administrative tribunal, which I think everyone in the parliament has agreed is a good idea. That legislation was at the time explained to everybody as being a piece of legislation that would establish a framework, an architecture, and that would eventually be populated over time with different waves of jurisdiction.

The idea was that the first of those waves, which is presently a matter which is going on here, would involve the Guardianship Board and the Residential Tenancies Tribunal. For various reasons that I may or may not be permitted to entertain at the moment, that appears to be stuck in the mud, so conversations about the immediate future of the SACAT have become complicated because of a peculiar coalition of members of the opposition and the crossbenchers.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: The interjections are foolish because not only are they out of order but it is a well-known fact to anyone with many fingers and toes that the government does not have a majority of people in the other place, so what goes on in there is actually something over which we have no control.

As to the question about boards and committees, the background to that matter is the Premier made it clear some time ago that the government thought it was appropriate for us to go through a thorough review of boards and committees and to ascertain a number of things. The first of those things was: do we need this at all? The second one was: if it is performing some useful function, need that function be performed by a committee? Could it be performed by some other entity or merged into another entity? Then there are questions of redundancy and various other things.

Further to that, the Premier earlier this week released a document. The document was put out there so that there could be an informed public conversation about matters relating to boards, committees and such like, and there are a number of propositions contained within that. I think the Premier has made it clear that he is inviting the public to have a look at that—the opposition too for that matter. Have a look at it and consider what they have to say.

Mr Griffiths: The Premier described those being abolished as the sludge of government.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Indeed. I am not arguing with that at all. I am glad you were paying attention to it.

Mr Marshall: We hang on every word.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: As one should. We all do over here. The point is that this is one of the matters—

The Hon. T.R. Kenyon interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Newland is warned for interjecting out of his seat and for interjecting that the deputy leader has never seen state cabinet.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: It is disappointing, but the clock appears to have stopped.

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