Page 4334 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 7 December 1993
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MR CONNOLLY: Exactly, yes. You did not acknowledge, I bet, in that press release what you have just acknowledged - that this has been the law since 1931.
Mr Humphries: That makes it all right, does it?
MADAM SPEAKER: Order! You will have your opportunity later.
MR CONNOLLY: You did not acknowledge that it is not a case of the Government trying to introduce new draconian powers but of the Liberals wanting to remove, from public health inspection in the ACT, a power which has always existed, and which exists in every other jurisdiction. That is what you are doing tonight. You, Mrs Carnell, of course, did not attend the briefing. You stood up here and said what was not said in the briefing. Mr Humphries attended the briefing, and Mr Berry can go further into precisely what was said. Essentially, if you support this Liberal amendment, you are not stopping the Government from introducing new sweeping draconian powers. What you are doing is removing a power which has existed - it is a bit difficult to tell - probably since 1931.
Mrs Carnell: But you do not know?
MR CONNOLLY: Mrs Carnell, it does take some time to track down precisely changes in amendments to regulations over that length of time, particularly in the very poorly drafted style of that 1931 Bill. It is a law which you glibly acknowledge, with a little smile on your face, has been there for a long time. You cannot provide a single example of a complaint about the exercise of this law. You are unable to provide an example of where it has been abused.
Mr Stevenson says that we should be very careful with these sorts of sweeping powers. We would agree, Mr Stevenson. It is a significant step to give these sorts of prospective powers. That is why the Scrutiny of Bills Committee, very properly, raises that red flag. But the area of public health is one where every jurisdiction in Australia, way, way, back, from the turn of the century, has had these sorts of prospective powers. It is considered fundamentally important that when the inspector goes in he has the ability to say, "That is a problem". At the moment, at that very instant, the butter is not off, it is not rancid, but it may become so.
Mr Humphries: May become so.
MR CONNOLLY: It will become so. He has reasonable grounds for believing so. I must confess that the detail of this obviously has not been my responsibility. When I heard Mr Moore's speech it occurred to me that we can fix Mr Moore's problem very easily. We will just insert a "has reasonable grounds" provision. Despite the rhetoric, such as, "He may do if he thinks" - that was the sort of rhetoric you were using and that Mr Moore was using - when you look at the provision it is a "has reasonable grounds" provision. The sort of fix that I was going to put in is already there. You have glibly chosen to ignore that.
You have glibly chosen to say that these are extraordinary, sweeping powers. They are more extraordinary powers than one would normally wish to see in a piece of legislation. I freely acknowledge that. But you acknowledge, Mrs Carnell, that they have been there for a long time, and they are there in every other Australian jurisdiction. Either everybody else is wrong and Mrs Carnell is right, or there is a reason for having more sweeping powers in public health food regulations. That is certainly the view of the Government.
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