Page 3395 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 17 September 1991
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this charge? Look at my excess bill", he will say, "Well, I tried; I tried; I tried; but all the other people would not let me; they would not listen to my eminently sensible argument". Well, we can read you like a book. We know exactly what you are on about.
I never suggested that we should let all legislation, all types of revenue measures, et cetera, be determined by experts. What I said was that the appropriate Minister should listen to the advice of his relevant public servants. He should then take it through the normal political process and get approval for those fees and charges, et cetera, in terms of the Cabinet concept. Then it should be brought to the parliament. Then, if the parliament so decrees, it can be disallowed, instead of allowing, God help us, people like you, Mr Moore, to be setting these levels independently.
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (5.25): After listening to that acrimonious little debate between Mr Duby and Mr Moore over the role of experts, I wanted to rise to remind the house of the definition of an expert, which is that an ex is a has-been and a spurt is a drip under pressure.
MR MOORE (5.26): Thank you, Mr Connolly, for your contribution to the debate. It is one I heard in Adelaide a long time ago. Probably we heard it from a similar source.
I would like to take issue with Mr Duby on a couple of small matters, without the acrimony, because he did raise the concept of reading. Had he read the original Bill, he would have seen that the disallowance was left with the Minister, and just the Minister. There was no requirement whatsoever for the matter of the water levels set to come before the parliament, contrary to the suggestion Mr Duby has just made.
When I raised this issue, I raised it in two ways: One was that the parliament should have a responsibility in this matter. Indeed, that has been taken up by the parliament. The amendments we are seeing now are having that effect. I wonder whether it would have happened had I not raised the issue publicly. That is the first thing.
Secondly, Mr Duby argues that this is just a conservation matter. Mr Duby probably did not read the explanatory memorandum that came with the Bill. It pointed out there that the effect of this would be to raise $2.2m in a full year. So, to separate the revenue side from the conservation side is, I think, inappropriate, apart from the acrimonious little debate we had before.
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