Page 2460 - Week 09 - Thursday, 17 September 1992
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employee. Is it social justice that we impose these penalties, these taxes on business, when we protect ourselves as members of parliament from them? Business would say that the problem is their capacity to pay. We say the same thing. Yet if we reduce our expenditure, if we reduce government expenditure, there will be more money in the business sector. If there is more money in the business sector, they will be able to employ more people.
A huge, simple argument is not often spoken of. If governments do not take away people's money, is there a suggestion that it will be hidden away, burnt, destroyed, not used? Of course not. If governments are not using the money, people will be using the money. Some people even suggest that, as they earned it, they would use it more wisely than government. We must reduce penalties on business. What is business? Business is nothing more than people working for a living. People with an idea and with a business community environment decide to give it a go, to try to employ people, to try to produce things that are useful in society.
There is another major secret in this area, and I think it is community. What is community? What is community in Canberra? Is it the ideal situation in Canberra that members of this Assembly run everything? We either do it or do not do it, and then this community in the ACT stands or falls. I do not believe that that is the answer. I do not believe that that is what people want. I think the answer - this fits in with everybody's ideology - is to have people fully involved in community. Can we do anything to help people become involved in this community? Indeed we can. One area, and this cannot be underestimated, is public consultation. Do we go to people and ask them for their ideas? Do we go to people with our ideas? Do we say to people, "We are here to serve all people for the greatest benefit to the community"? I know that much is said about consultation; but, truly, most people in this Assembly and outside the Assembly know that it is lacking. True consultation would involve laws being made known to people. There would be legislation that is beneficial to people. Legislation would be clear and understandable.
There is a Bill before the Assembly at the moment that has a clause with 158 words in one sentence, followed by a clause that has 170 words in it. Is that clear legislation? We have plain speaking awards in Canberra. Let us earn them ourselves by producing legislation that, for a start, members of parliament can understand without having to sit up all night, hoping that someone in the party has the capacity and spends the time trying to understand it. But you give this legislation to people in the community, and they do not understand 99 per cent of it. That is probably a conservative statement.
We need legislation that does not contain unintended consequences. We have before the house today a Fair Trading Bill that, if passed as is, would make it an offence for a bank to supply automatic teller machines. It would make it an offence for any business to offer services that someone ordered by phoning and giving a credit card number. It would make it an offence to operate a computer at home and order goods and services. All these things would be made an offence by this fair trading legislation. It clearly says that it is not okay for a trader to encourage someone to use a credit card or a debit card without written authorisation. I know that this is an unintended consequence; but it was intended that that Bill would go through today, after a delay of about a week. We must
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