Page 1076 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 23 June 1992
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But let us take the more recent fluoride Bill, the Bill to double the level of fluoride from 0.5 to one part per million. Let us have a look at whether there was any problem with that Bill. We all know in this Assembly that when the Bill was introduced it was going to be debated - until it was realised that, if it proceeded in the particular form it was in, it would make it an offence for workers within ACTEW to deliver fluoride to our water supply at anything other than exactly one part per million. That Bill had to be changed.
Can I suggest that once again here is an example of Bills being moved through the house too quickly. If we miss all these things - and that is possible because we propose Bills that already have errors in them - why not allow the community time to pick up the problems? We cannot get it right. People in the community have as much capacity as we do to read and study proposed legislation, but they need the time. I think that is particularly important, as I have said before, because the ACT parliament, like the Queensland Parliament, has no house of review. I am not suggesting that we should have a house of review. I think members well know my belief about the entire Assembly. But because of that it is important that, when we introduce legislation that might be here for 10, 20, 50, 100 years or more, we do it correctly and allow people time to have a say.
This is the fourth time I have raised a matter of public importance on this issue. I give notice that I am proposing changes to our standing orders. I will seek to do that tomorrow morning during private members' business time. I finish by saying that public consultation, or democracy, is not achieved by talking about it, but simply by delivering it.
MR HUMPHRIES (3.22): Madam Speaker, the Liberal Party is also concerned about the issues that Mr Stevenson has raised in this place, in particular the program of business which the Government has delivered to us for this week. As I have said on previous occasions in this place, the Government likes to think that the work in this Assembly is really less important than the work that goes on in the Cabinet room; that, once the Executive makes a decision about something, that really is all that matters. After getting it through caucus and letting the factions have their say on the matter, dealing with it in this place is really just a minor second step like signing a Bill into law.
Mr Connolly: That is a good speech in a majority parliament, but it does not really work in a minority Assembly.
MR HUMPHRIES: You shake your head across there about this matter. You do not behave like a minority government. You are putting legislation before this place at such a rate that it is not possible for members of this place to properly consider it. It is not possible to properly consider the legislation, and that is a fact.
There are three Bills that we are about to consider. They are three long, complicated pieces of legislation, making reference, I understand - I say "I understand" because I have not had time to read them myself - to very thick, complicated legislation in Queensland. It would seem to me appropriate - - -
Mr Connolly: I can feel another study trip coming on.
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