Page 3776 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 16 October 1991
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I do not know whether Mrs Grassby would be happy for me to add that to the motion. I do not want to get into a long drawn out debate here this morning, for obvious reasons; but I think it is appropriate that this proposal be widened slightly. I did not really get an opportunity to raise this part of my proposed amendment with Mrs Grassby. I did discuss the other one. I wondered whether I could get an indication, because I do not wish to drag it out.
Mrs Grassby: Mr Speaker, there is an amendment which will be handed around.
MR SPEAKER: Order, Mrs Grassby! Have you concluded your speech, Mr Jensen?
MR JENSEN: Mr Speaker, for the purposes of the record then, seeing that I cannot get a wink or a nod from Mrs Grassby on this, I formally move:
After "Region" add "and calls on the Federal Minister for Transport and Communications to allocate more than one public radio licence to the ACT in 1993".
MR KAINE (Leader of the Opposition) (10.43): Mr Speaker, reluctantly - because I have not discussed this with Mr Jensen either - I will not support this amendment. The reason that I will not support it is that it muddies the water, and reduces the impact of the motion that Mrs Grassby has put forward, which I support. I think that to start at this stage to talk about licences, when Mr Jensen has already said that it is the Minister's intention to issue only one licence, and to throw in the suggestion that we ought to be considering other contenders is simply to weaken the case that Mrs Grassby has put forward - and there is no question at all that there is a strong case for a community based multicultural radio station in this region.
I think that we should stick with that proposal. We should put it firmly, and without equivocation, that we support this particular proposal. For that reason, I would have difficulty with going to the lengths that Mr Jensen is proposing here. I do not have any objection, in principle, to what he is suggesting. But I think that it would be much more productive if he would deal with that matter as a separate motion to be considered on its merits, rather than trying to tack it onto the end of this one, which is a good motion in its own right and one which I believe this Assembly ought to unanimously support.
Mr Jensen's proposal could then be taken as a separate motion - and it really is a quite different proposition that he is putting forward. It does not have anything to do with a community based multicultural radio station. In fact, I think one could argue that it would be improper to attach that amendment to this original proposal, because it does not relate to the original motion in any way. It
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