Thomas Ian Pauling, AO QC
Administrator (Paper 1274)

1. The Assembly appoints a committee known as the Select Committee on Animal Welfare Governance in the Northern Territory, comprising:

(a) two government members nominated by the Chief Minister, and two opposition members nominated by the Leader of the Opposition;

(b) one Independent member, with the Chair of the committee being appointed from the opposition members; and

(c) a government member being appointed Deputy Chair of the committee, with members being nominated no later than 6 May 2011.

2. The committee be empowered to inquire into and report on animal welfare governance in the Northern Territory and various government departments that are associated with animal welfare, husbandry or research, with particular reference to:

(a) the appropriateness and effectiveness of the current NT Animal Welfare Act and Regulations and other relevant legislation including provisions in regard to prosecution.

(b) the processes and systems adopted by the Department of Resources and its predecessors, the Department of Local Government, Housing and Regional Services and its predecessors, the Office of the Ombudsman NT and the Charles Darwin University in relation to the recent investigations into animal welfare issues at the Charles Darwin University owned cattle station;

3. The committee be empowered to send for persons, papers and records, to sit in public or in private session notwithstanding any adjournment of the Assembly, to adjourn from place to place and have leave to report from time-to-time its proceedings and the evidence taken from all relevant parties, make such interim recommendations as it may deem fit, and to publish information pertaining to its activities from time to time.

4. The committee have an inquiry term of three months from its date of establishment, with a requirement to provide a final report to be tabled within the Assembly no later than August 2011.

5. The committee be empowered to publish from day-to-day such papers and evidence as may be ordered by it, and, unless otherwise ordered by the committee, a daily Hansard be published of such proceedings as take place in public.

6. The foregoing provisions of the resolution, so far as they are inconsistent with standing orders, have effect notwithstanding anything contained in the standing orders.

(1) Condemn the Member for Katherine for not giving a full and truthful personal explanation on the 31st of March 2011 regarding the used car scandal he has been embroiled in and in so doing he has deliberately misled this Assembly and the people of the Northern Territory. Principally, he asserted that he had merely made “mistakes” and he did not inform the Assembly of the damaging findings in the 2004 Ombudsman’s Report into the matter, namely that:

(a) He altered the original Notice of Disposal and Application to Transfer documents, not once but twice, and that it was “difficult to accept S/Const Westra Van Holthe’s denial that this was done without intention to deceive or avoid prosecution and penalty…” (p12);

(b) It was “clearly open to inference that this was a deliberate attempt by Constable Westra Van Holthe to avoid statutory penalty for his failure to register a motor vehicle transaction and pay transfer fees and stamp duty within 14 days of the sale.” (p12);

(c) The alteration itself was “unlawful” (p12);

(d) He “used his position as a police officer to his personal advantage” (p14);

(e) His unauthorised access of MVR records at his home constituted a “conflict of interest and improper conduct” (p14).
(2) Call on the Leader of the Opposition to immediately remove the Member for Katherine as Shadow Treasurer and outline his knowledge of the scandal and when he became aware of the Ombudsman’s Report.

The unacceptably low standards of child protection set by the current Territory Government that sees an infant child returned to parents after being left alone in a lane way in Tennant Creek.

1. call on the Australian Government to exempt the Northern Territory from proposed carbon emissions taxes for at least fifty years or until such time as global consensus has been reached on a worldwide carbon emissions reduction plan.

2. through the Speaker forward the terms of this motion to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and President of the Senate.