Page 1222 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 24 June 1992
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Mr Lamont: That is typical of you, though. You do not accept the point of the legislation. You do not understand why it is being done.
MR HUMPHRIES: Madam Speaker, it is winter, as Mr Lamont astutely observes. Let us adjourn the debate on this Bill for two weeks and come back in two weeks' time and debate it then.
Mr Lamont: So in two weeks' time you want the house to sit again?
MR HUMPHRIES: Two weeks, yes.
Mr Lamont: You want the house to sit again?
MR HUMPHRIES: Absolutely.
Mr Lamont: You want to put us to the expense of coming back in two weeks' time?
MR HUMPHRIES: What expense?
Mr Moore: Go on through the night.
MR HUMPHRIES: Hang on. If you were serious about letting this issue be properly debated by the community, then we would come back in two weeks' time. I think, Mr Moore, you might be heading somewhere further north, somewhere like Cape York Peninsula, for your winter holiday, well away from the cold that other Canberrans might be experiencing. Perhaps you would not be too keen about coming back for a sitting in two weeks' time. But I have to say to you: Do not pretend that we have no option but to pass this right here and now. We do have other options. We could come back, if we wanted to; but obviously some of the people here are prepared to accept on face value that if a thing looks like a good idea we should rush ahead and pass it. That is not the principle on which you make good laws. We will keep saying that again and again, and I hope that the Government eventually will listen.
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (5.31), in reply: Madam Speaker, the poor old tories! They have only one record. It is a cracked one and we hear it over and over again: "No time to consider things". Nothing could more starkly show the distinction between this reformist Labor administration and this tired Liberal Opposition than today's legislative program. We have brought forward four significant Bills implementing Labor's social justice agenda on domestic violence and the response has been, "We have not had time to look at it; we grudgingly support it". Now on this landmark legislation, as I think Mr Humphries himself called it, their only objection is that they have not had enough time to look at it. Their speeches basically said, "We have not had enough time to look at it. It is all too hard. We have not had enough time to consider it". By comparison, Ms Szuty and Mr Moore made long, erudite and detailed contributions. They seem to have had plenty of opportunity to do their research, do their work and come up with some very sensible contributions to the debate.
As members would be aware, this Bill is implementing the recommendations of the Community Law Reform Committee. Although I tabled the report with the draft legislation only last week, the report itself, without the draft legislation, was made available in December of last year. The report set out the policy parameters
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