Sue Neales, Mercury
STARTLING advice given to the State Government by Tasmania’s senior legal adviser has thrown into doubt 180 years of powers and privileges accorded to the Tasmanian Parliament. Solicitor-General Bill Bale this week advised Premier Paul Lennon that he had doubts about the entire legal foundations of the Tasmanian parliamentary committee system. Mr Bale believes that in 1825, when the Legislative Council was the first House of Parliament in the colony of Van Diemens Land to be established, the legal statutes governing the committee system were “not properly constituted”.
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Legislative Council president Don Wing last night was furious at the Solicitor-General’s bombshell. “I totally disagree.”
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The Solicitor-General this week advised the Premier that there may never have been laws enacted in the early days of parliament that bestowed the ultimate powers of protection against defamation — so-called parliamentary privilege — on these committees.
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Legal experts poured scorn on the “long bow” being drawn by the Solicitor-General. University of Tasmania constitutional law expert Michael Stokes said he was baffled that Mr Bale could have reached the conclusion that any legal deficiencies of parliamentary statutes in 1825 had not been overcome by more recent laws.“It’s watertight. I don’t think you can possibly dispute that the Parliament or its committees have the power to request any people or documents it wants to appear before them, or that any documents once presented are protected under absolute privilege as far as the law of defamation is concerned.”
