Page 3639 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 8 December 1992
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speak to groups of people, formally and informally. So, there are other times. I do not know how many comments have been made on this issue by either Mrs Carnell or Ms Szuty, but searching the library is an inadequate way of dealing with this issue.
The other point that the Minister raised was that nobody had accepted his invitation to be briefed on the Bill and to deal with the issue since this last form of the legislation was tabled. That is correct. I have explained the amount of time that I had. I simply had a full diary and it was impossible to find the time to do that. That is the first thing. The second thing is this: Minister, perhaps you commented on this and I missed it, but you will recall the large number of times that Tina van Raay from my office and I went to your office and discussed this Adoption Bill prior to that.
Mr Connolly: And we delivered on all those points.
MR MOORE: Indeed, you met the concerns that we had. Had we not had this particular arrangement of two sitting weeks, a week off and then a further sitting week, perhaps we would have been able to do it in that way, but the reality was that there simply was not time. Minister, I now reiterate that how quickly this can be put into action after February will come back to you.
MS SZUTY (9.15): I said in my in-principle speech that this issue has been discussed at length by the various groups directly involved with adoption. Draft legislation has been available for some time and the Government also has been working on the Adoption Bill for some time. I would like to take the opportunity to remind members, as Mr Moore has done, that the Adoption Bill 1992 was tabled by the Minister for Housing and Community Services, Mr Connolly, on 18 November. As Mr Moore rightly points out, members will be aware that since that time there has been only one week's break between sitting periods, when most of us have been involved in public hearings and finalising reports as members of various Assembly committees.
The Adoption Bill was scheduled for debate today and it is interesting to note that the Government has only two Bills, tabled during the November sittings, to be debated in this sitting period - the Adoption Bill and the Housing Assistance (Amendment) Bill, which will be debated on Thursday. It is also noted that in this sitting period there are 10 government Bills listed for introduction. It needs to be remembered that once the adoption legislation is passed it will take some weeks before the legislation is gazetted, which will allow the Housing and Community Services Bureau time to consider the ramifications of the legislation.
It seems entirely unreasonable to me, as Mr Humphries pointed out earlier this evening, to ask the ACT Legislative Assembly to consider this landmark legislation in the shortest possible timeframe. This stage of the process of considering the legislation is the most important stage. We, as Assembly members, do ourselves a great disservice if we do not take the time to carefully consider the legislation and its ramifications before its passage. An appropriate mechanism for doing this is for the Bill to be referred to the Standing Committee on Social Policy for further consideration.
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