Page 3718 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 15 October 1991
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Mr Humphries: I think Mr Connolly is drifting from the point of the legislation he is putting forward. I cannot see what his favourite subject has to do with the Community Advocate Bill or the guardianship Bill, and I would hope that he would return to his subject.
MR SPEAKER: I uphold your objection, Mr Humphries.
MR CONNOLLY: Mr Moore says that there is no division; it is all broken up. Anyway, as I was saying, the Liberal Party, or at least Mr Humphries, may not like the pace, but we were anxious to progress the in-principle stage. We were always saying that we would accept consultation on the detail stage. That has occurred.
I am confident that the Bill in principle will be agreed to tonight and that this Assembly, very shortly, will be able to proceed to the detail stage with, effectively, an agreed slate of amendments that will mean that this Territory moves, in effect, from the nineteenth century - from the shameful position of the Lunacy Act 1898 - to legislation which reflects the best of law reform into the twenty-first century. That will reflect credit on the entire Assembly.
MR MOORE (9.24): Mr Speaker, I seek leave of the Assembly to make a few comments in the in-principle stage of this debate before we actually vote on the in-principle stage. I was not in the chamber when I should have risen, and I apologise for that.
Leave granted.
MR MOORE: Thank you. I will be quite brief in my comments. I certainly welcome, along with other members, the general thrust of this legislation. I would like to take the opportunity to compliment Mr Collaery on his extensive work in this area. It is something that I had discussed with him long before this Legislative Assembly was formed. I think it would be churlish of anybody to take away from Mr Collaery the work and the effort that he has put into this particular legislation. It is something that he can be very proud of. I think the community owes him a debt of gratitude for it.
Many other people, too, have worked on this particular legislation. The current Attorney-General has followed up on it and members of the community have been working on it for many years. It is very welcome that we can agree in principle on this debate and bring ourselves into this century just a little less than a decade before we go into the next.
The package certainly is a major step in the right direction. However, there are, of course, a few areas of detail that are currently under discussion. There are some amendments that I shall be looking at carefully, along with other members of this Assembly, to ensure that the legislation is the best possible legislation that we can
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .