Page 2650 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 August 1991
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come we will discover that they are eight more of the ones which are in this legislative program and which were prepared and ready for tabling before we lost government. It is significant, however, that a very major Bill that was on the books and ready to be presented before we lost government - specifically, the Land (Planning and Environment) Bill, which is included in this list - has still not been tabled.
The Government is now hedging and will not even tell us when it intends to table it. They talk about priorities. While we were in government they made much of the fact that this Bill was an enormous priority. In fact, they accused us of procrastination and taking too long. Notwithstanding the fact that we were involved in community consultation - familiar words, I am sure - in order to get that Bill right, they made much of the fact that we took a long time to bring the Bill forward. I do not see it coming forward. They have now been in government nine weeks, yet this very important Bill that was ready to be tabled at the time that we lost government still has not been brought forward - and, of course, the urgency and the heat seem to have gone out of it a little bit. Now it is not so urgent.
I wonder whether they are going through any kind of community consultation process before they table it. The answer to that question is no. They make much of community consultation; they do none of it, although they put it about that they are the consultative party and that they are really into community consultation. That is the reason why I asked the question about the section 19 casino proposal. They are very good at changing their mind on policy issues. They talk about community consultation, but I do not recall the Labor Party asking anybody whether it should change its view about whether or not a casino should be built on section 19 - or indeed about the whole question of whether or not there ought to be a casino. They claim to be implementing the program that the Alliance Government put in place, and indeed to a certain degree they are. But they are also prone to set aside those bits of it that do not suit them, without any explanation whatsoever.
The Opposition will be watching this program - very largely our program, which the Labor Government has now espoused as its own - with very great interest to see whether the Government accords the same degree of importance and priority to some of these matters as we did. I would just like to note, for example, the Adoption Bill. That is a very important matter, and, again, one on which we undertook a great deal of community consultation to make sure that we had a Bill that was acceptable to all of the players in the game.
That Bill is listed, I see, on the legislative program of the Labor Government. I will be watching with great interest to see how quickly they bring it forward and whether or not they change it - and, if they do change it, whether they do so without this community consultation that
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