Page 404 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 24 February 1993
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protect the principles of justice and the principles of natural law. Mr Connolly is frowning. I find it hard to understand why he is frowning. Am I not putting simply the case that it is not a good idea to introduce laws that you are not going to enforce? Is that not simple?
Mr Connolly: You are simply wrong, Dennis.
MR STEVENSON: Mr Connolly says that I am simply wrong. I do not know how I can be simply wrong. I quoted the horseracing industry spokesman. So what was wrong? Was he wrong when he quoted the Act? Are sections 7 and 8 of the Act wrong if their provisions relating to cruelty and pain make horseracing illegal?
Mr Berry: Horseracing is going along all right. I was up there on Sunday. They certainly looked like horses going around.
MR STEVENSON: Mr Berry says that there is no problem; that he was at the horseracing last Sunday and it was operating. That is the point I have already covered. I did not say that horseracing has been banned; I said that horseracing has been made illegal. You can make many things illegal, and obviously if there are no charges laid the illegal activity will go on. But in this town horseracing has been made illegal.
Mr Berry: Thankfully, Dennis, you do not make the decisions about what is illegal and what is not.
MR STEVENSON: Mr Berry said that it is good that I do not make the decisions on what is illegal and what is not. But if I did and if I had the nine votes that the Speaker was so good as to give me last night, I would not pass a law that made horseracing illegal. So was that a benefit - - -
Mr Moore: You would not be in here, because you would abolish this place. There is a certain amount of hypocrisy associated with this whole line.
MR STEVENSON: I have to comment on Mr Moore's remark that I would not be here if I had those nine votes. Indeed, none of us would. That is quite true. We would have a municipal council with a lord mayor - something that most people in Canberra agree with. What a good idea! I would be happy to vote for Ms Follett as the lord mayor. I will give you my acknowledgment now that when we get a council I will be happy to do that. If you vote for a council I will be happy to - - -
Ms Follett: Call us the legislative council. I do not care. That is a compromise. Would you settle for that?
MR STEVENSON: Would I settle for a legislative council? Yes, indeed, provided it had a lord mayor and provided the responsibility for health, education, and law and order were again undertaken by the Commonwealth, as is required by the Constitution.
In summation, it is eminently reasonable that we handle the serious problem of having a law in the ACT which makes horseracing illegal but which is not being enforced because it was accidentally introduced without taking any notice of the legal view that that was exactly what the law would do if enacted.
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