Attorney-General A.J. Nicholson has dismissed comments made by Opposition Leader Bruce Golding about the tabling of a Green Paper on Constitution Reform in the House of Representatives last week.

Senator Nicholson said the Opposition's description of the document as "misleading and deficient" was "extremely unfortunate".

The following is a statement by the Attorney General in response to the Opposition Leader's comments, which were published on Friday (June 4):

"The choice of the Leader of the Opposition to describe the 'Green Paper' on Constitutional Reform as 'deficient and misleading', because, according to him, it does not set out in detail every item of agreement and disagreement in respect of the reform issues, is extremely unfortunate. For, what is called for now is to commit ourselves to bringing the efforts that have been made over the past 15 years to full implementation and not to allow the whole process to continue to be indefinitely stalled by partisan bickering and nitpicking.

Defending reasons

In the first place, the Paper did not signal that it was, and could not have purported to be, a complete record of the totality of the discussions that have taken place over the last 15 years. It was intended to highlight the important areas of agreement that had been reached.

Second, the Paper did not say that there was total agreement on everything that was discussed. It stated correctly that, while there were wide areas of agreement, there were also some areas of disagreement which were all set out in the basic document which is the Report of the Joint Select Committee of Parliament of May 31, 1995. These areas of disagreement would need to be resolved. The last two paragraphs of the Green Paper make this abundantly clear:

"[The] two appendices, together with the final Report of the Joint Select Committee dated May 31, 1995, contain the matters on which agreement has been reached between members on both sides of the House and those relatively few matters on which some areas of disagreement still exit.

"It is proposed, at some convenient time, to debate a Resolution that will seek the approval of the House for the process of Constitutional Reform and will enable Parliament to resolve any matters that still require a final decision."

Familiarise themselves

Some of the present members of Parliament were not members of Parliament in 1995. The members were therefore urged to familiarise themselves with that report, which is part of the records of Parliament and available to all members, as well as to the general public. As it happens, Golding was a member of that Joint Select Committee.

The matters that he has mentioned as still being unresolved, though important, are by no means as fundamental as those that have been agreed. If the political will for constitutional reform exists, they can be resolved. Some amount of willingness to compromise will be required; but surely, this is not too much to ask of our political leaders in the interest of present and future generations.

We dare to hope that common ground can be found to address these issues and invite the Leader of the Opposition to indicate a process to deal positively with those matters that remain unresolved.