Mr BAYLEY (Clark) – Honourable Speaker, I thank the member for Clark for bringing forward this motion. I have to say that when I got up this morning, being lectured by minister Abetz about dog-whistling was not on my list of things that I thought would happen. I feel very much like the kettle being called black and I find it quite disgraceful, to be honest, as I do the comparison of this legislation to the expungement of criminal findings of actions that in this day and age are accepted and legal. They are fundamental human rights and an important part of redress for a wrong that occurred many years ago. I read here from Attorney-General, Guy Barnett’s, media release from just a few days ago, 1 August 2024, about the expungement bill:
The Tasmanian Government has today tabled the Expungement of Historical Offences Amendment Bill. We have acted on the recommendations of an independent review of the Expungement of Historical Offences Act 2017 undertaken by Ms Melanie Bartlett and Ms Taya Ketelaar-Jones in 2020. We are expanding the scheme to provide that related offences are also eligible for expungement, further supporting a victim-centred approach to investigations, improving measures to support effective record disposal and confidentiality of records for all parties, including specifically exempting applications. The Expungement of Historical Offences Act provides a scheme to enable charges and convictions for historical offences to be expunged. [TBC]
Somehow, comparing the retrospective validation of a whole range of unidentified, unsubstantiated developments to the expungement of crimes recorded against people that are no longer morally or legally acceptable, I find is a really disappointing comparison. It certainly does not pass the pub test. They stand separate.
I want to say that I absolutely support this motion to refer this bill to a committee in the absence of an adjournment and in the absence of allowing the court to receive evidence, allowing the court to consider that evidence, and allowing a court to make a determination. Referring this bill to a committee of this House to do similar, hear evidence, consider that evidence and make some recommendations is the next best thing. Is the very least we should do in this place.
Minister Abetz, if you do not accept the advice of legal academics from the University of Tasmania because you question their politics or their motivations, it will give you the opportunity to encourage someone, and maybe even the Solicitor-General could produce their advice to that committee so we can understand the alternative perspective. You seem to claim that those UTAS law lecturers have some kind of agenda or Marxist political approach – that is exactly what you said – but it would give us all an opportunity to hear from them, to hear from someone else and perhaps even to hear from the government’s own legal advisors, whoever they may be, about this bill. We absolutely support the referral to a committee. This whole notion that someone with a house or someone with a fence that is keeping cattle out of a dune system somehow faces a $100,000 fine because of that situation is an entirely straw‑man argument. We have had no criminal prosecutions in this place for 30 years. We are talking about what is seen as a different interpretation – theoretically ‑ of the bill as opposed to any other issues.
The fact that there have been no criminal proceedings brought forward for these developments in 30 years – the life of this State Coastal Policy – demonstrates that the risk is very low for those issues. If, at the conclusion of the court case or the committee process that finds that, yes, there are very real issues as articulated by the member for Braddon, with a walk at Cooee to Penguin or somewhere else, then the House can consider how best to deal with that at the time.
To say here and now – in the absence of tangible examples, in the absence of credible legal advice and in the face of what is clearly the primary motivating factor for this legislation, which is the fact that the Robbins Island wind farm has hit a hurdle with the government’s own environmental agency joining a court case in the federal court to challenge a development or part of a development that was not assessed – it beggars belief that we would do that.
Members on my right have articulated really clearly, and I articulated in my Second Reading contribution, that that wharf has not been assessed. If we pass this legislation, it will not be assessed. There is no capacity for conditions to be placed on its approval to protect certain values. There may be significant, important values in there at those areas.
There is no capacity for the environmental, social or Aboriginal heritage impacts of that to be assessed upfront. We are unaware of any excavations that have happened there already, any archaeological work or anything like that. What we will see is basically a huge industrial development with a significant impact – 150,000 tonnes of sand being moved to facilitate this industrial development – being rubber‑stamped by this Chamber with no assessment, no cause, no consideration of conditions and no other considerations aside from the fact that we are in a tearing hurry now and there is currently a court case afoot.
I support the referral to the committee. It would give Committee A a good opportunity to invite witnesses, including the proponent, and including whatever alternative legal perspective the government wanted to put up. It would give the university law lecturers, who have been much maligned here by the minister, to have an opportunity to put their case. As is our job as committee members, we could take all that evidence, consider it and carefully look at the recommendations. We may recommend doing a retrospective validation of everything.
From what I have heard in this debate from both the government and the opposition, that this is all about historical developments on these mobile landforms over the last 30 years. Nothing about Robbins Island. Do not worry about Robbins Island. If, after hearing the evidence in the committee, we conclude that, ‘Okay, fair enough, there is a problem there, let us retrospectively validate those issues so that no one will come knocking down the door with a legal challenge to those developments’. Well, we can do that then. If we do not want to consider the Robbins Island development and we want the Robbins Island development to be properly assessed to demonstrate that it can stand on its own two feet – if indeed it can – then we can also do that.
At the moment we have this blancmange of a bill that captures everything in its wake – everything in the past and everything going forward, or at least everything including the Robbins Island wind farm – despite the fact that there is a live court case active in the Federal Court.
This is a complete mess. It is clearly running counter to community sentiment about what this House should be doing and what the community wants us to do. I reiterate again: 0.8 per cent of the submissions that were received as part of this consultation process supported this House passing this bill today.
Everybody else raised serious concerns, be they political ones in terms of practicality, legal ones, environmental or Aboriginal heritage ones. There are legitimate concerns that need to be aired. There are legitimate concerns that we owe as a House the opportunity for Tasmanian people to articulate and put their own evidence forward. In the absence of allowing the Federal Court to give us some guidance on what to do here, Committee A reporting by 4 March is certainly the next best thing. We will be supporting this motion.
