Page 4088 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 22 October 1991
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If you look at clause 6 of the proposed Bill you will see that that is a much weaker provision. It says:
... furnish that evidence to the Attorney-General for the Territory, the Commonwealth, or the State (as the case may be) or to the appropriate law enforcement agency.
The Commonwealth Act is much more definite now, and I believe that the Attorney should more properly have moved this amendment - unless there is some good reason why, which I am unable to determine. He should be bringing into law the version of the National Crime Authority Act as it now stands, not the earlier version.
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (9.32): Mr Collaery has circulated a very detailed amendment. What he says, prima facie, requires detailed examination, and I have no alternative but to seek an adjournment of the detail stage. Mr Collaery has brought in a detailed amendment without notice. This is the first I have seen of this amendment. This is, I believe, the first that Mr Stefaniak from the Liberal Party has seen of it. There was universal support for the Bill at the in-principle stage. When we get to this sort of detail amendment, we obviously have to take advice.
Mr Collaery, in his speech at the in-principle stage, made some remarks about, I believe, clause 29. Again, if he has concerns about that, or proposed amendments, I am happy, as we did with the guardianship exercise, to provide officers to sit down and go through the detail. We are approaching this in an open-minded manner, but I am in no position this evening either to accept Mr Collaery's amendment or to oppose it.
He is proposing detailed changes to complex legislation which is essentially a national scheme. I want further advice. I want the opportunity to give my advisers' views to Mr Collaery and, equally, the Liberal Opposition and other non-government members have a right to consider this amendment and to seek to raise with the Government whether they should support the amendment or the Government position. So, with reluctance, because I had no notice of this detailed amendment, I am forced, really, to seek to adjourn the detail stage to another day.
MR COLLAERY (9.35): I would like to respond to that and make clear to the house that I have not had the opportunity - I am still speaking to this amendment, Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker - to avail myself of the excellent liaison of the Parliamentary Counsel's Office. These matters came to my attention, in research, in the last hour. In fact, I was still procuring this information physically, myself, up in the library - I stand corrected - within the last two hours.
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