Page 913 - Week 03 - Thursday, 14 March 1991
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Mr Connolly: I raise a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. This member is acting in a highly disruptive manner and I think you should deal with him.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes. Mr Stevenson, you are acting in a disorderly manner. Would you please be quiet.
MR JENSEN: Thank you, Mr Stevenson - I am sorry; Mr Speaker - Mr Deputy Speaker. I am all confused by that incredible tirade. However, let us get onto what we are talking about here today. Mr Stevenson expressed some concern about an inability to raise the various issues and discuss them during the debate. Of course, it will be quite possible for Mr Stevenson to do that during the detail stage of the Bill - or both Bills, for that matter.
Before I start on my own comments on this Bill, I would like to comment on Mr Stevenson's suggestion that hundreds of people have written to the Assembly members. Certainly, I have received hundreds of pieces of paper, or letters that in some cases were signed with some form of address at the top. However, they are almost exactly the same and comply with about three different formats. I am quite happy to write individually to people who wish to take the opportunity to write to me specifically on the Bill, but I am afraid that the number of form letters that I have received does not indicate to me the sort of support that Mr Stevenson suggests he has. I think the number of people that appeared outside the Assembly on Tuesday this week proves quite clearly that the support that Mr Stevenson claims he has in this area is not necessarily there.
On that basis, let me say from the outset, and put it on the record, that I fully support the introduction and passage of this legislation in this Assembly. I have no doubt - and I am sure my learned colleagues from both sides of the house will think likewise - that this Assembly does have the power to pass such legislation, just as every other house of parliament in Australia has already done in some way, shape or form. I comment on this legislation today as someone with a degree of experience with weapons, having been a member of the Australian Army for some 22 years, which included a tour of duty in Vietnam as an infantry platoon commander. There I was made only too well aware of the effect of weapons. I might add at this juncture, for the benefit of Mrs Grassby, that I volunteered for my term of duty in Vietnam, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am really just getting that on the record because of the incident the other day.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: She assured me that she was only joking, Mr Jensen, so that is all right.
MR JENSEN: My Army career also included a number of years involved in the development and implementation of physical security policy relating to procedures for the control and protection of weapons and classified information. Therefore, I believe that I speak with some knowledge of
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