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Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-07-02 Daily Xml
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Motions

Statutory Officers Committee

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (16:01): I move:

1. That this council—

(a) notes Message No. 9 from the House of Assembly of 6 May 2014 advising of the appointments to the Statutory Officers Committee of the Hon. M.J. Atkinson, Hon. J.R. Rau and Mr Wingard;

(b) notes section 21(2)(e) of the Parliamentary Committees Act 1991 which states 'A person ceases to be a member of a committee if the person…becomes a Minister of the Crown'; and

(c) invites the House of Assembly to reconsider the appointment of the Hon. J.R. Rau, Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Justice Reform, Minister for Planning, Minister for Housing and Urban Development and Minister for Industrial Relations.

2. That a message be forwarded to the House of Assembly conveying this resolution.

I have moved this motion to make sure that we stick to the rules and the intent of the Parliamentary Committees Act. It is my understanding that the act states, 'A person ceases to be a member of a committee if the person…becomes a minister.' My understanding, I think, is that the government is trying to argue that, because he was already a minister in a legal and technical way, he is still eligible to be on the committee because he has not become a minister while he was on the committee.

In this case, of course, the Attorney-General will be providing recommendations to that committee as to who the new ombudsman should be. As you would know, Mr President, we appoint the Statutory Officers Committee whenever there is a vacancy for an ombudsman, auditor-general and those types of government appointments, and always in the past members on that committee are not ministers.

Minister Rau, I note, in a response to the issue being raised by Sheradyn Holderhead of The Advertiser, said, 'No member of the opposition raised this in the House of Assembly when the appointments were made on the first day of parliament.' It is a bit interesting and a bit cute, Mr President. You have been a minister and had the pleasure of it and, as you know, you have a team of advisers. You have a whole department behind you. Minister Rau is saying that not one person in his office or in the department has ever read the Parliamentary Committees Act to know that this could have been a problem. I find it hard to believe, with the resources of government, that they had not actually checked exactly what the Parliamentary Committees Act says.

I think it is important that we acknowledge it is totally inappropriate for a member of cabinet to be on the committee because these officers are supposed to be independent. They are not actually government appointments, they are appointments of the parliament, and they are obviously meant to be independent. I do not want to prolong things today because I know we have a very extensive schedule of private members' business today, but I would indicate that I will bring this to a vote on the next Wednesday of sitting. It is just a simple motion.

I suspect it may well be that they have already met and selected an ombudsman, but I would ask the government to reconsider their position—they have another sitting day tomorrow—and to amend that committee appointment. It would be very simple for them to do so over the next couple of days—tomorrow, especially—so that this anomaly does not continue and that we have a truly independent committee to appoint our next ombudsman.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins.

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