Page 6061 - Week 18 - Thursday, 12 December 1991

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not need to do anything here; but, while it is the Commonwealth's responsibility to prevent the manufacture of ozone depleting gases, it is our task to prevent the sale or the use of them within the ACT, except under licence.

Mr Stevenson made some other comments, and showed that he had not had much time to research this - although, if the quality of the research is the same as that which we experienced when we were looking at fluoride, I do not think it would make much difference. I will not comment on the points that he raised in that regard. I note that there are a few amendments to be moved by Mr Humphries. The Government also has a few amendments and we will move onto those now.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill agreed to in principle.

Detail Stage

Clauses 1 to 13, by leave, taken together, and agreed to.

Clause 14

MR HUMPHRIES (4.58), by leave: I move:

Page 5, line 32, paragraph 14(1)(c), omit the paragraph.

Page 6, line 25, paragraph 14(4)(f), omit the paragraph.

These two amendments are the same in nature. They both remove the requirement that an applicant for a licence to use, deal with, manufacture or service an article containing ozone depleting substances be considered a fit and proper person, pursuant to an unspecified test which obviously appears in some other legislation as well. Paragraph 14(1)(c) relates to this requirement for an applicant who makes an original application for a licence, and paragraph 14(4)(f) mentions one of the criteria that the authority must consider when making a determination on that application.

This sort of formula appears not infrequently in legislation. I have to say that I consider it, when I see it, to be a provision which is framed for the convenience of people administering such provisions, because it is a convenient catch-all which can be used by a public servant administering an Act to avoid the need to actually consider whether a particular applicant does or does not otherwise satisfy all the requirements set out in legislation.

We have here a piece of legislation which intimately affects the livelihood of people. A major company which is refused a licence to manufacture or deal with CFCs potentially runs the risk of losing the capacity to employ


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