Page 5436 - Week 17 - Tuesday, 3 December 1991
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I will not go into that. The simple fact is that it was done, and it was done, from my point of view anyway, quite deliberately to raise funds and to discourage people from going onto motorcycles, which were dramatically cheaper to register than in New South Wales. The figures quoted by the Minister about the increase in registrations of heavy machines in the ACT are accurate. There are a lot of shonky registrations being done in the ACT now. Whether that reflects on our registration procedures I do not know. Over the years there has been a reduction in the number of motorcycles on the road, and yet a huge increase in the number of large machines being registered in the ACT. The fact is that that is directly related to the comparative costs of registration between the ACT and New South Wales.
Apart from all that, this comes down to a matter of principle. That is the principle of allowing a government to set charges and to collect them as it sees fit - I suppose that is the way to put it. We are legally able to disallow, but in a normal world disallowances would not occur because in a normal world we would have majority governments.
There is a grave matter of principle involved in picking out one particular item from the ACT budget, even if it appears at first glance to be inequitable, because you perceive it to be politically opportune, and then denying the Government the opportunity to go ahead and impose those charges, particularly given the timeframe of this budget. Only this morning we had a letter from the Chief Minister discussing the concept of caretaker government in relation to building up to the election in February 1992.
If this is a matter of such great import, in my view it would be appropriate to leave the charge in place and let the voters - those motorcyclists who have to pay the fee - show at the polls their displeasure with the Government, and indeed with anyone else who supported the Government, me included. Perhaps it would turn out that a number of those people who are displeased are not on the ACT roll. It is a matter of principle in that regard.
As a general principle, I think this is setting a very dangerous precedent in terms of allowing and disallowing charges. I know that Mr Moore is going to get up and say that the Assembly is supreme, et cetera; but I have real difficulties with that. Let us be frank. This was introduced, quite deliberately, for safety reasons and for revenue reasons. For members to pretend that those two reasons are not valid reasons to enable the Government to set a fee, which is what a lot of people here are doing, is simply not being true either to themselves or to the facts, which are there for all to see.
I cannot support this disallowance motion. It would appear that the majority of members of the house will support it, from what people have said today; but I think it is a bad decision and one we could live to regret.
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