Page 3309 - Week 11 - Thursday, 12 September 1991
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I issued a written press release - and I will stand on this - and Mr Connolly went on television that evening and said that we did not need an inquiry. That was filmed by WIN, and the proof lies on film. I think Mr Connolly owes us an apology. I called for an independent public inquiry into liquor in that press release because I was at the youth centre - - -
MR SPEAKER: Order! Mr Collaery, I have given you the opportunity to speak to the amendments. You are actually summing up, by the sound of things. I ask you to speak to the amendments.
MR COLLAERY: Mr Speaker, I am indicating why there should be an independent inquiry. I take your point and I will ration my remarks. All I see this board of inquiry doing, as distinct from the Assembly committee that Mr Connolly seeks in his amendment, is to tie together a lot of the issues that have already been researched. Since self-government, the one and only inquiry we have had under the Inquiries Act 1938 was the one to which Mr Kaine appointed John Enfield. I thought he did a fairly quick job; it was a fairly voluminous report. I do not know what it cost; but I am sure it did not cost so much that it would concern the community, given the important issues that were involved.
I do not see this inquiry as going any higher than that. There is a mass of information available in the community and within this Assembly in the Assembly reports, particularly from Mr Moore's committee and Ms Maher's committee. The stage is set for a very good and adequate flow of information to someone who will conduct an inquiry and look at those issues.
We have not been prescriptive; we have just said that the terms of reference could include the points raised. It is ultimately up to the Government, which would give this commission under the Inquiries Act, to set the terms of reference so that they have the cost of the committee under their control. They should not take cheap shots and suggest that they cannot have a board of inquiry because it will cost too much and that it should be an Assembly standing committee.
Those Assembly committees cost a fair amount of money too. It would need to be specially resourced, I would suggest, and you may find it costing even more than the sort of one-off inquiry that John Enfield did for us in another area. It may well be that the Government would seek that the inquiry set the stage for a series of issues for any incoming government, rather than produce an enormous range of reports and the rest. It may point up the need to do a number of things in government.
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