Page 3188 - Week 10 - Thursday, 16 September 1993
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What happened, I suggest, is that after this was passed on 11 May, because of objections by either a Minister or the Government to what was required, namely, that kick boxing should be allowed in the ACT, Ms Szuty's amendment was tossed into the pending file and ignored. Unfortunately for the Government, their hand was forced, because the Kickboxing Association decided that they were going to have a contest on 10 July. I would assume that, because of the publicity about the debate in the Assembly, the kick boxing people probably imagined that the will of the Assembly would be upheld. They were wrong.
The Government also found themselves faced with a public relations disaster. What happened was that they were not just going to have a kick boxing competition; they were holding it in order to raise funds towards helping a three-year-old boy called Jamie Boye, from Narrabundah, who urgently needed a heart-lung transplant. This became a public relations disaster for the Government and finally - not at five minutes to midnight, but probably at one minute to midnight - the Minister concerned, Mr Berry, stepped in and used the authority he possessed to allow that kick boxing event to proceed. He had that capacity to allow it to proceed all along. One wonders, therefore, why he left it until one minute to midnight - in fact, only a couple of days before the contest. The result was that money was lost because tickets had been sold and the money had to be refunded. I think the matter was raised yesterday in a question by Mr Stevenson, and I will not canvass that any further.
What I am concerned about, however, is the quite appalling attitude of this Government towards the will of the Assembly in this case, where what the majority of the Assembly wanted was totally ignored until this Government's hand was forced. Even then it was done as a one-off exercise, which could have been done much earlier.
Ms Follett: You are embarrassing Ms Szuty.
MR CORNWELL: No. To answer the Chief Minister's interjection, I am not embarrassing Ms Szuty. Ms Szuty, I am sure, is quite capable of speaking for herself and will do so; but I am certainly not embarrassing her. I am embarrassing the Government, because the Government has ignored what the majority of this Assembly requested. Our intentions were quite clear. You should have given the instructions to your legal advisers and asked them to get on with the job. However, you chose not to do so. Simply because you did not like what the majority of the Assembly wanted to put forward, you decided to ignore it. You are a minority government, I remind you again, and I suggest that in future, when the majority of the Assembly instructs you to behave in such a fashion, you simply obey our will.
MS SZUTY (12.10): It gives me no particular joy to comment on the Boxing Control (Amendment) Bill 1993. However, I am pleased that the anomalies that have come to light about kick boxing provisions in the Boxing Control Act are being addressed. The Minister in his presentation speech explained quite well the inadequate effect of the amendments. The difficulty relates to section 12 of the Act, which requires that participants or officials in kick boxing contests need to be members of the body known as the Amateur Boxing Union of Australia or an affiliated body. On subsequent investigation it was discovered that kick boxers are not members of the Amateur Boxing Union of Australia, nor are they members of an affiliated body.
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