Page 909 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 27 March 1990
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MR SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr Berry.
Mr Collaery: Mr Speaker, I understand the record records my absence from the chamber at this time.
MR SPEAKER: Order! Please make a personal explanation.
Mr Collaery: I have been present here throughout.
MR SPEAKER: Order! You do not have leave to speak, Mr Collaery.
Mr Kaine: Misrepresentation; that is his point, as usual.
MR SPEAKER: Please proceed.
Mr Collaery: Petty point scoring.
MR BERRY: The real issue here, Mr Collaery, is that the great civil libertarian should have concerns about the civil liberties of the people of the ACT and the appropriateness of individual persons taking action against the Crown to prosecute them for an offence or to prevent them from committing an offence. In this matter the Government has listened to its bureaucrats to ensure that they would not be embarrassed by any action by an individual person in the ACT, should he or she decide to take action against the Crown in relation to an offence under this legislation.
It is scandalous that Mr Collaery should leave the chamber in the course of this debate. In the past he has expressed great concerns about issues such as this, but on those occasions he was not in a position to be called upon to deliver. Now that he has been called upon to deliver, he is being led along by the hand by his advisers and seems to have lost any concern that he may have had in the past in relation to the interests of individuals in the Territory.
This amendment proposed by Mrs Grassby deserves the support of the Government. It seems though that the course has been set in the party room. We can expect that the Government will vote against the rights of individuals in the ACT taking action to defend their environment where the Crown offends reasonable standards of environmental protection. That is all I have to say on the matter.
MR DUBY (Minister for Finance and Urban Services) (8.22): I rise to speak against this amendment. In doing so, I would like to quote from my tabling speech which pointed out that this piece of legislation has been a long time coming. It started in 1988 when a report was commissioned to determine the amount and type of clinical waste being generated in the ACT and to define a management strategy to deal with it. That study was undertaken in consultation with the ACT's city engineering section, the then ACT Community and Health Service and the Trades and Labour Council of the ACT Inc.
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