Page 5098 - Week 17 - Wednesday, 12 December 1990
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Chief Minister has indicated that the package will be reissued for further public consultations through to February so that we can make sure that we have the very best assemblage of all of the consultative comments to date. That is a very exact and very important example of the consultative process that we tend to use with our legislation.
The criminal law amendments I introduce have invariably gone through the Criminal Law Consultative Committee; they have certainly been referred to the arms of the legal profession; they have been mentioned and debated publicly; and, as Mr Stevenson knows, my style often is to float the ideas about these amendments well in advance to test the winds and to gauge public reaction. That is a device that governments use generally, and it is a device that I would suggest that anyone sitting opposite, were they in government, would also use in appropriate cases.
I think Mr Stevenson's submission today is very righteous. It comes from the comfort of knowing that he will never really have to bite the bullet and sit over on this side of the house. That is important in itself because Mr Stevenson knows that the discrimination Bill which I tabled recently in this Assembly is another classic example of our willingness to cop the political flak - because I suppose it is fair game for an opposition to fire shots when you do not bring in straightaway a Bill that is perceived to be important. But I am willing sometimes to stand back and take the flak, as the rest of the Government is, to make sure that the consultative process is proper. Mr Stevenson gave the Government no credit for those and other Bills on which we have consulted widely.
Mr Stevenson: That is not true. I did at the time, and you should well know it.
MR SPEAKER: Order, Mr Stevenson, please!
MR COLLAERY: Well, Mr Speaker, through you, Mr Stevenson did not give us the credit now. He did not remind the house.
Mr Stevenson: Ha, ha!
MR COLLAERY: There are other examples; but clearly I am not getting through to Mr Stevenson and I will not delay the debate. If the Government is to be flexible to external pressures and quick and decisive where it needs to be, then, of course, there will be occasions where, regrettably, legislation needs to be passed quickly. That is particularly so in finance situations or situations where legislation has produced unintended results.
I am sure members of the Opposition would agree with me on these points. After all, their Government was guilty of the most hasty passage of Bills not declared urgent. This occurred on 28 September 1989 when this Assembly passed a
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