Page 1646 - Week 06 - Thursday, 13 August 1992
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
MR HUMPHRIES: But the fact of life is that, if they have been launched, they have been launched, and they are pursued under laws of the Territory which have to be answered to. I do not think these laws should go forward unless they are mitigated appropriately.
MR WOOD (Minister for Education and Training, Minister for the Arts and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (11.58), by leave: Madam Speaker, among the pieces of legislation that I have passed in my year and a bit as Minister are the planning legislation and the dog control legislation - both quite important pieces of legislation. They went through in particular ways and subsequently were implemented. This piece of legislation will be no different. In the normal course of events the Government will not immediately gazette this legislation, because we could not do so. Those provisions, however, that are necessary to enable the administration and machinery functioning of the legislation can be commenced. This will enable regulations to be drafted, as with the dog control legislation and the planning legislation. Once this is up, we turn our full attention to the regulations. Obviously, there is a delay until they are all in place.
Mr Humphries: All in place? Did you say "all in place"?
MR WOOD: Yes. I am talking about regulations here, Mr Humphries, if you were listening. This will enable those necessary steps to proceed before the major provisions come into force. This was the way we did it with other pieces of legislation, as Mr Humphries belatedly acknowledged. This is the way that this will proceed. With this Bill we can establish the Animal Welfare Advisory Committee. They can be requested, because it is their job, to give high priority to the establishment of codes of practice, those essential codes of practice.
It is only late in the debate that some of you people opposite have started to understand, or at least to talk about, the codes of practice. When this debate first started you did not really understand them. Those codes of practice can be established - I think particularly of the racing industry and the egg production industry - before the Act comes into full force. That is the normal and reasonable practice of the past and it can happen this time. You have not wanted to acknowledge that. Therefore, with this process, with this fairly routine way of doing things, we can comfortably accommodate your anxieties about those codes of practice.
Mr Humphries: So they are all going to be in place before the legislation is fully enacted?
MR WOOD: Well, perhaps not every code of practice that might encompass everything, but certainly those two key codes of practice in relation to racing and egg production will be in place before - - -
Mr Humphries: Two of them are going to be in place. Is that what you are saying? Just two; maybe three. Two or three out of 20. That is a disgrace, Minister.
MR WOOD: Well, two. The essential codes of practice will be in place before this legislation comes into full force. That is the only way - it is the routine way and it is the proper way - to proceed.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .