Page 3597 - Week 12 - Thursday, 19 September 1991
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MR STEFANIAK (6.00): That is a hard act to follow. I will not even try.
Mr Wood: You were never barefoot, were you?
MR STEFANIAK: I probably was. But I do not think I would try to measure things; I would probably get it all wrong, anyway. At any rate, this is, as Mr Jensen said in his entertaining speech, uniform legislation agreed to by the various Ministers, both State and Federal, in January 1990.
Mr Jensen may not have said this in his dissertation on bread; but, basically, the Weights and Measures Act will be with us probably for a few months yet, until Queensland works out what it is going to do in terms of weighing bread - whether to use dry weight or wet weight - at which time the Weights and Measures Act will be repealed and its provisions will then become part of the Trade Measurement Act. That is why we have that particular Bill. At any rate, these three Bills arise as a result of the January 1990 Ministers conference.
It is important that the ACT Assembly pass these three Bills. It is probably sensible that we sit and actually pass them now, because the New South Wales Parliament has already enacted its identical legislation and we are very much an island in New South Wales when it comes to things such as this. It was important, for example, that we had uniform taxes for the tobacco franchise. That was very sensible. In terms of trade measurement, it is also essential that we go along the same path as New South Wales.
New South Wales, Queensland and the Northern Territory have already enacted this legislation. We will be the fourth place to do so. The Liberal Party was a little bit concerned, initially, about the fines going up to $20,000 and $5,000, but that is the case Australia-wide.
Mr Berry: But you like having fines and gaol and all that sort of stuff.
MR STEFANIAK: I will come to that, actually. That is the case Australia-wide, and basically we have no problem with that.
Mr Berry: And a bit of corporal punishment.
MR STEFANIAK: I do not think you would have corporal punishment here, and quite appropriately. In fact, the terms of imprisonment which used to be in the old Act have been taken out, because it is pretty hard to imprison a corporation, for starters. Such penalties are rather unrealistic when one considers Acts such as these. Of course, $40 is simply no deterrent to anyone who might want to abuse these provisions. However, it is interesting. I
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