Page 5390 - Week 17 - Tuesday, 3 December 1991
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Territory Planning Authority to allow it to do so. The attempt to pass the decision to the Planning Committee appears, on the face of it, to be merely a ploy to duck the decision. The committee rejects this approach.
MR WOOD (Minister for Education and the Arts and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning), by leave: I regret that we gave that committee, sound and efficient as it is, just one working day to do its task. I confess that I had not looked closely enough at that letter and did not check carefully to see just what would have been the best day. So, that aside, let me respond.
Mr Kaine said that I was not taking seriously the proposals and the working of the committee system. Well, that is just what I was doing. Mr Jensen's amendment, supported by a majority in this Assembly, imposed quite arduous new conditions on the way that draft variations are to be processed. It is true, as Mr Kaine says, that that Bill has not yet been enacted; but in anticipation of a fairly rapid enactment of it - it was my understanding that it does not take very long - I was seeking at that time, Mr Kaine, to respond to the spirit of that amendment and to observe the intention of the Assembly. Accordingly, I dispatched no small number of draft variations to that committee.
I believe that I did that in the right spirit. I believe that it was the proper thing to do. As it turns out, that Bill will not be enacted until close to the end of the life of this Assembly, and that is fine.
Mr Kaine asked me to be consistent with past practices. I am quite happy to be so. If the draft variations that I presented to them are to proceed through this house with that consistency, then I am quite pleased. I think that we would be in deep trouble if all or any number of those draft variations were to be delayed by an unexpected and unplanned interruption in the procedures.
The Government had moved in the full expectation that all those variations would be completed in the life of this Assembly. The interruption presented grave troubles to us, hence my referral of them to Mr Kaine and his committee. I hope that we can proceed to get them through the Assembly, because that is the important thing.
HEALTH BUDGET - MONTHLY REPORTS
Amendment of Resolution
MR BERRY (Minister for Health and Minister for Sport) (3.10): I seek leave to move a motion in relation to the resolution of the Assembly of 20 November 1991. I have circulated some information in relation to that matter.
Mr Humphries: You have not circulated the motion.
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