Page 1781 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 18 August 1992
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Mr Humphries: It is too draconian. It is unfair.
MR BERRY: What about the consumer? The consumer is the one we are trying to look after.
Mr Kaine: That is why we are saying that if it is to the prejudice of the consumer it is an offence; if it is not to the prejudice of the consumer, it is not.
MR BERRY: This is where we differ. Under this legislation, if the consumer does not get what he demands, it is to his prejudice. Under Mrs Carnell's proposal, if the consumer gets what the vendor decides he ought to get, he has not been prejudiced. That is ridiculous. For example, under Mrs Carnell's proposed amendment, if a person wished to buy a sandwich spread with margarine, asked for margarine and then received butter, it could be argued that the butter was superior to the margarine and therefore the sale was not to the prejudice of the customer.
Mr Humphries: That is a good point. Is it to the prejudice of the customer?
MR BERRY: It might be.
Mrs Carnell: Are you going to put them in gaol for six months for that?
Mr Kaine: They might put mayonnaise on it, and that is even better.
MADAM SPEAKER: Order! Mr Berry has the floor.
MR BERRY: That just shows the lack of concern that these people have for consumers.
Mr De Domenico: What rubbish!
MR BERRY: Listen, James Cagney, we do not want to see any more of your demos here. It is not a pantomime.
Mr De Domenico: I take a point of order, Madam Speaker. For the benefit of Mr Berry, my name is Tony De Domenico, not James Cagney. He probably was a better actor than I will ever be.
MADAM SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr De Domenico.
MR BERRY: If a person wishing to buy a sandwich gets butter instead of margarine, there could be, as I said earlier, some difficulties because of dietary or personal preferences. It is not a question of the court deciding what is good for somebody; it is about the court deciding whether the customer got what he demanded and paid for.
Mrs Carnell: He does not have to pay if he does not like what he got.
MR BERRY: This is the ACIL report coming through again. The Liberals searched this piece of legislation and could not find a thing wrong with it. They had to come up with this ridiculous amendment that strikes at the heart of the Bill, just to prove that they have a different position.
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