Page 1245 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 11 May 1993
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So we are safe. It is aimed exclusively at kick boxing. But I am reminded of the drunken would-be William Tell who was reported in America last week as aiming an arrow from his bow at a tin can on the top of a friend's head and shooting the fellow in the eye. When Mr Berry says that it is his aim to target exclusively kick boxing, I am not sure that he struck the target. I think the legislation is ill conceived. I think it is a problem that there is no consultation. I do not think we should have New South Wales making this law for us.
MR BERRY (Minister for Health, Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Sport) (9.06), in reply: I must say that those proponents of kick boxing who see Dennis Stevenson supporting them would be very worried about their position. If Dennis supports it there has to be something wrong with it.
Mr Stevenson: Like Canberrans wanting a council?
MR BERRY: I must also say that that outrageous little snake oil salesman act that we just heard in relation to interpretation of the law demonstrates your absence of knowledge and the reason that you are in here and not dealing with law. You know nothing about it - - -
Mr Stevenson: Absence of legal training I grant you totally.
MADAM SPEAKER: Order!
MR BERRY: You know nothing about it. I think you just set out to make a laughing-stock of this place in your approach to the way that we make laws in this chamber.
I will deal with a couple of things that Michael Moore said. Firstly, I agree with Mr Moore that an interjection I made was an intemperate choice of words, and I withdraw them unequivocally in relation to Mrs Carnell. I know that she cares about her children, but I have to say that it surprises me that somebody like her supports this sort of legislation. If she supports what Ms Szuty is on about it will lead inevitably to more violence in our society. There is no question about it.
Mr Moore: There is a question about it.
MR BERRY: I will get to Mr Moore. Mr Moore is a great one for talking about not banning things and how we ought to have a free market in various items in society, but he supports a ban on tobacco advertising. He supported the Labor Party. He supported the Labor Party - a good position, too - and Ms Szuty supported the Labor Party in a ban on circuses.
Mrs Carnell: No, Ms Szuty did not.
MR BERRY: Did she not? I take that back about Ms Szuty. Mr Moore supported the Labor Party - it was a proper position for him to take - to ban circuses in the ACT. To take the position that Mr Moore has taken in relation to something which he describes as a ban on kick boxing seems to me to be a bit of doublespeak - just a little bit; a smell of duplicity, as they say.
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