Page 5006 - Week 17 - Tuesday, 11 December 1990
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Another area that is most interesting is that, according to clause 3, the Act is binding on the Crown, which is a fairly standard thing. Of course, there is no way of enforcing that, so one wonders to what extent that has any real significance and how people might make the provisions of the Act actually binding on the Crown.
The final issue that I would like to raise does follow a great deal of jocularity on the part of the Government, when Mr Connolly suggested that he might make a bet as to whether or not the new legislation would be finished at this time next year. I suggest that one way of ensuring this would be to provide a sunset clause. We have a number of concerns about this Interim Planning Act. A simple way to resolve them would be to use a 12-month sunset clause to ensure that those concerns could be raised. I believe that it is not a difficult thing to do. It would reflect, of course, the confidence of the Government, instead of their awkward laughter and the jocularity we heard before when Mr Connolly was prepared to lay a bet.
I hope that in the Chief Minister's response we will hear a response to a series of those issues that I have raised, because they are serious concerns. I bring them up not in a spirit of straight opposition to this Bill, but more in a spirit of saying that I support the Bill, but that I have some serious concerns and I would like those serious concerns to be taken account of. It seems to me that the logical way to deal with them is for us to adjourn the debate on this Bill this evening, and to bring it back on Thursday, having taken appropriate account of those concerns; that is, after we have gone past the principle stage.
MR KAINE (Chief Minister) (10.17), in reply: I appreciate the fact that Mr Moore, at least in the Opposition, has understood the importance of this Interim Planning Bill. I make it clear that it is only an Interim Planning Bill. Later in this session I will table the latest version of the five planning Bills after they have been updated to reflect public input. The intention is that they will go out for public consultation again, in order that when we finally bring them before the Assembly as Bills for enactment they will be as comprehensive as possible and they will reflect the wishes of the community as far as is possible.
Of course, the Interim Planning Bill we are talking about tonight, in fact, does not relate to that package of legislation at all. The fact is that events at that other place across the lake, where we were quite unexpectedly told that the transition period could come to an end much earlier than was originally planned by the Commonwealth, raised the question of the legality of the actions of this Government in planning matters. That is why we need the Interim Planning Bill. It is not because of any failure on the part of this Government. It was necessitated by changed circumstances in the Federal Parliament and the
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