Chauvel Charles: Summary Proceedings Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Chauvel Charles: Summary Proceedings Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:668;Page:15064] 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 There have been a number of excellent contributions to the debate on the Summary Proceedings Amendment Bill (No 2) although it has been short. I will make a couple of references to those contributions in my third reading speech. 
Ironically one of those contributions at least in substance if not in form came from Paul Quinn. He pointed out that this sort of mistake is easily made and that observation has been made by others as well. One of the things we need to consider as a Parliament is why we make these sorts of mistakes given that we have a number of checks and balances in the system. We have excellent officials—that is generally agreed across the House—both in the department and in the Parliamentary Counsel Office advising on the form and substance of these sorts of changes. It probably is appropriate to reflect on whether omnibus criminal law reform is a good idea. Clearly the previous Government thought it was on this occasion. As has been pointed out the Opposition at the time supported that notion. But it is the case that criminal law changes dealing with the detail and the minutiae of the classification of offences for example are complex. They involve a level of detail that sometimes we gloss over in the House particularly when there is consensus on an issue and I think it is appropriate to reflect on whether we do pay enough attention to these sorts of issues all the time. 
It is particularly appropriate to consider that at the moment because as the Minister of Conservation has reminded us we have amending legislation coming into the House this year—if the Government’s legislative programme advances to plan—to remove the summary/indictable distinction so we will be revisiting this issue. We have the Legislation Bill before the Regulations Review Committee at the moment which would introduce a new streamlined procedure for legislation that is certified by the Attorney-General the Clerk and others to be simply procedural in nature. That legislation would be enacted through a different form from the first second and third readings and Committee stage that we have become used to under the Standing Orders. We need to be very sure that before we adopt that sort of procedure we have in this House sufficient safeguards to make sure that that sort of streamlined enactment procedure is appropriate for legislation that will not get the sort of detailed scrutiny that frankly as we now see—thanks to Judge Marshall’s decision—this legislation should have had and did not get. As was said it could have happened on anyone’s watch but we need to look at why it happened and at how we can do our best I think through the safeguards we have in the form of the officials and the select committee procedure and through our decisions as parties to vote in particular ways on particular legislation to safeguard against this sort of mistake being repeated too often at least. 
The only other thing I wanted to say was to reflect on the comments that have been made about retrospective legislation. It is generally offensive to legislate retrospectively but here it is pretty clear that the safeguards have been observed. There has been a real attempt in the drafting of the legislation to preserve rights as they exist at the time of the giving of the Royal assent or as they will exist when that assent comes to be given to this legislation. There will be the preservation of rights to challenge proceedings that have been mounted to question the ultra vires of any proceedings under the amending legislation and that is appropriate while taking a validating approach going forward. 
With those concluding comments I indicate that Labour members continue to support the validating legislation.