Page 3190 - Week 10 - Thursday, 16 September 1993
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experienced some difficulties in recent times with regard to the perceived intent of and the accuracy or otherwise of the legislation we have passed. It would be interesting to ask the Government whether the failure of these amendments to do their intended job could be considered to fall into the category of technical oversight, as a number of other matters have.
I am confident that these amendments proposed by the Government to the Boxing Control Act enable kick boxing to come under the provisions of the Act. It remains for the Minister to draft appropriate regulations and codes of practice to complement this legislation. I would like him to give high priority to these tasks, to put into effect the views of the Assembly on the control of boxing, including kick boxing. Mr Cornwell, who spoke earlier in this debate today, has indicated that the Government needs to draft these regulations and codes of practice as a high priority, to give effect to the will of the Assembly in this matter.
MR STEVENSON (12.15): In Mr Berry's tabling speech he mentions, first of all, that kick boxing is an unnecessarily violent activity, unashamedly targeted at the younger sections of the community. I have seen no particular evidence that - - -
Mr Berry: I will show you some in a minute.
MR STEVENSON: Fine. I have seen no particular evidence that kick boxing is targeted at the younger community. I would assume that most people practising kick boxing could not be described as the younger sections of the community - certainly not from what I have seen. Secondly, Mr Berry tries in the speech to push the responsibility for the error made within the Bill onto other members of the Assembly. This is not a good example of the ALP accepting any responsibility for anything it does. Even if it had been the rest of the Assembly that passed amendments that did not fit - and we see that that is not the case - Mr Berry was well aware for some considerable time that kick boxing was not going to be banned in this Territory. So why was there no preparedness for that eventuality? Why did you not know, putting it bluntly?
Having failed to introduce regulations that were necessary to allow kick boxing tournaments to be proceeded with - and you say in your speech that, basically, that could not be done - you did it, albeit too late. Then you have the hide and audacity - and I put this on behalf of those people concerned with sport in the ACT, and particularly with kick boxing, who are fundraising for the young boy - near a debate where we are talking about freedom of speech, to claim that the money that was raised for the young boy was not given to him. Yet you absolutely fail, once again, to accept the slightest ounce of responsibility for making sure - that may not have been your intention, although it looked like it - that that tournament did not go ahead.
What happened was that, although they said that they would give part of the profit to the child, the tournament was not allowed to go ahead until the last minute. It lost money; thus there was no profit. You could not answer a question from me, but you waffled.
Mr Berry: No.
MR STEVENSON: You do not know; I am not surprised. Someone asked me why I let you go on, without interjecting and saying under standing order 62, "He is not answering the question". You said yesterday that the boy did not receive the money.
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