I just want to return to the core purpose and origins of the Director of Public Prosecutions. The reason this was proposed in the last election--and I'm not afraid to say it--is that a lot of people were confused about the fact that a number of advertising agencies were pursued with legal action when one organization, which was clearly at the centre of the same scandal and benefited directly from it without any question whatsoever--this is beyond debate--was not. That organization was given the ability to decide how much of its stolen money it wanted to repay.
The purpose of the Director of Public Prosecutions demonstrates that there should be an independence in public federal prosecutions and that the public should know if there is political direction given to the Attorney General's office. In cases such as that one, where the partisan interest of the Attorney General himself seems to conflict with the public interest he is meant to serve, there should be as much space as possible between that Attorney General, who is a partisan elected official, and the prosecutorial component of the federal government. If the Attorney General, who is partisan, does want to direct the prosecutorial arm of his department, he has to do so in a way that is public, not secret, so that people know.
That is the real reason we want to have this separation. It doesn't create a new bureaucracy; in fact, it will be the same office. It just separates the powers and basically opens up the drapes so the sunshine can come in. We can see what's going on in there--to use an analogy that Mr. Martin has been fond of in the past.
That is the purpose of this office. I wanted to state that on the record to remind people of why we are doing this and where the idea was born.
I'll just move to the question. Do you believe that this will cause any major upheaval or problems, from an administrative standpoint, in the Department of Justice or in the Attorney General's office, or do you think these changes can be accommodated in a fairly efficient way?