Page 2884 - Week 11 - Thursday, 22 October 1992
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MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (11.20): The answer is that we are here taking an equivalent provision, section 52A, from the Commonwealth Trade Practices Act, which is currently the law in this Territory and has worked comfortably here for its duration. I am just getting my advisers to find the precise subsection equivalent of the relevant subclause of clause 13. The answer here - as it will be, I suspect, to most of Mr Stevenson's many amendments - is that we are picking up equivalents. Mr Stevenson may argue that we have not had time to consider his amendments. He has had 14 months to raise objections with me as Minister or with the department. He proposed a raft of amendments a day or two days ago, and then says, "We have to delay debate. People have not had a chance to properly consider these". That is a fairly hollow claim.
The equivalent Commonwealth provision is subsection 52A(3), which has exactly the same effect as our subclause (3) which it is proposed be deleted.
Mr Humphries: But why is it there?
MR CONNOLLY: The notation here says:
[It] makes it clear that the mere instituting of legal proceedings is not to be regarded as unconscionable conduct.
It is part of the corpus of trade practices law that has existed in this Territory and in the Commonwealth since section 52A was first enacted in 1986. Madam Speaker, I make another point while I am on my feet. Ms Ellis made reference to the Liberal Party wanting to abolish the position of Federal Minister for Consumer Affairs, and there was much ranting and raving from opposite. The House of Representatives Hansard of 14 October 1992 records Mr Reith interjecting on Jeannette McHugh:
We will not need a Minister for Consumer Affairs under us.
So says Mr Peter Reith, the current Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party. There is the Liberal Party abolishing the position of Minister for Consumer Affairs. There will not be a separate Minister for Consumer Affairs. What there will be, no doubt, is what there was for a period during the Fraser Government - a sort of Minister for business. The consumer interest will be subsumed.
Mr De Domenico: And consumer affairs.
MR CONNOLLY: There it is in Hansard. You were all squawking about it - - -
Mrs Carnell: You mean that we are saving taxpayers' money by not having to have another Minister?
Mr De Domenico: No, we are just going to get rid of Jeannette McHugh.
MR CONNOLLY: You are abolishing the position of Minister for Consumer Affairs, which I think says a lot about the Liberal Party's attitude to consumer affairs.
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