Page 3942 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 23 October 1990
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answer that issue because he has the straight advice there. That has always been my understanding of the law and is the understanding of the Law Office too; that is the advice given to Mr Duby and he will respond to it.
I want to mention another interesting matter that Mr Connolly raised, and that was the style of the Government's legislative program and the fact that multi amendments come through to principal Acts. I am quite happy to conduct a survey, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, on, for example, the amendments the Government has progressively done to the Motor Traffic Act 1936. They are, of course, the Australian Design Rules amendment, the child restraint amendment, the taxi fares amendment, and the fee for taxi licences amendment. I am sure Mr Connolly will be delighted to know that there are about five others in the pipeline.
The essential problem of government is that each of these issues usually requires separate consultative action by the Government departments concerned and that is a community consultative thing, or a business and community consultative thing, or, for example, with the Australian Design Rules amendment, there is some involved discussion with the Federal Department of Transport and other States. A lot of this evolves from the joint Ministers conferences that we go to - although, of course, the Opposition do not like to see us attending those ministerial conferences - to secure agreement for uniform activity on child restraints and Australian Design Rules. The Opposition says we are wasting travel funds by attending those meetings and securing those agreements.
Certainly, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, it is extremely difficult to bring those Bills together; but, in any event, I will undertake a review of that matter to see whether there is, beyond the printing of the first page and the preamble to the Bills, a lot of extra work and funding in it. It may be the reverse. I do not know. I think Mr Connolly has raised an issue that we will look at. It was mentioned in the Estimates Committee.
On the penalty unit issue, Mr Connolly knows, as a lawyer, that that has been around for years and governments have progressively, with a certain degree of activity or not, been looking at it. Mr Connolly has to accept the fact that when the Alliance came to government the Territory had not had, if I may say so without being insulting, an informed, practising Attorney-General, and the fact of the matter was that very little had been done.
Mrs Grassby: Oh, I don't believe it!
MR COLLAERY: The law reform process had not even been initiated, Mrs Grassby, and a whole range of activities, along with many other functions of government, had lacked policy direction - not from the public service but from the minority government that, of course, was too afraid to
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