Page 1963 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 24 October 1989
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It introduces a whole series of new amendments to the Occupational Health and Safety Bill that we have never seen before.
It has never been discussed with anybody. The Deputy Chief Minister no doubt will expect us to debate the Occupational Health and Safety Bill today and he will say, "You have had months to consult". So I ask the Deputy Chief Minister why then were these amendments dropped on us yesterday at five that we had not previously heard about? So much for consultation.
The Deputy Chief Minister says that we have not taken advantage of the Government's gracious offer for briefing on some of these matters. Absolute rubbish! We have taken advantage of the briefing, but for the Government to imply that the only consultations that we need to enter into as an opposition are with itself and its officials on government business is, again, absurd.
We have to consult with a lot of people to get the opposite view to what the Government is putting forward. Certainly, we want to know the Government's view, but we get that. What we have to do is to go out and find the opposite, and if we do not have sufficient time, if we do not understand the complexities of the Bill, if we have not had time to do that, how can we then go and make sure that we do understand the ramifications and the consequences of these Bills?
It is not enough to say, "We offered to tell you all about it. You didn't take advantage of it". That does not answer the case at all. Mr Speaker, government policy is clearly to keep everyone in the dark - not only the members of this Assembly but everybody else as well. They can stop talking about open, consultative government. That is not their intention, and simply talking about it and repeating it does not make it so. Their principal purpose is to keep the opposition members in the dark, to give us the minimum opportunity to prepare for debate so that we will let their legislation go through even though we do not like it.
The Payroll Tax (Amendment) Bill is a classic case, because that Bill is going to be brought forward this afternoon and we are going to be told that, if it does not go through in this session, we will incur a loss of revenue of $200,000 a month. If the Government members were really concerned about that, there was nothing to prevent them putting that Bill on the table three months ago. Their budget provided for an increase in revenue from payroll tax. They knew darned well how they were going to get that revenue increase in payroll tax. They did not tell us until one month ago. As I said, only one week ago we discovered the fallacy of the Government's asserted community consultation. They did not consult with anybody. We are now, as the Opposition, trying to remedy that deficiency, and yet we are going to be told by the Government this afternoon that we must have the Bill in place today; it is
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