Page 4611 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 15 December 1993
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MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (11.19): Madam Speaker, I hope members realise that I could have taken the same action that Mr Kaine is now proposing to take. The reason I did not is that I had assumed that such action would be ruled out of order, for the very reasons that you have outlined. I believe that this is a spot of grandstanding by the Liberal Party, and in some ways it is redundant. As members know, the Government did amend the previous arrangements for imposing stamp duty at conveyancing rates on long-term leases. We changed the arrangement from leases of 15 years to leases of 25 years, and that change has been in place administratively ever since.
Madam Speaker, I think that there are two issues here. One is the principle of the standing orders of the Assembly. I had already assumed that this action would be out of order, and if I had not made that assumption I would have brought forward amendments. They were drafted, but I have withheld them for the very reason that I had assumed that they would be out of order. So there is that point. I think the standing orders of this Assembly are worth protecting. There is a question of precedent in members taking the course of action that I presume they are to take, and, indeed, Mr Stevenson could have taken it many times. He has introduced one Bill repeatedly, always with the required period in between. It is up to members to respect those standing orders. I also believe that the Liberals are simply trying to grandstand on this issue when they know that substantially it has already been dealt with.
MR KAINE (11.21): Madam Speaker, I oppose the motion. I believe that the Chief Minister is simply burying her head in the sand and trying to avoid major issues, issues on which this Government made a major mistake when it put its legislation on the table only a matter of weeks ago. Members will be aware that at the time that the legislation was on the table I brought to the Chief Minister's attention a letter from the Law Society which she clearly had not seen. That led to a delay of the debate for one day while she reviewed the letter; but, having reviewed it, she simply set it aside. That letter raised very serious issues and very serious questions about the legislation. Since then I have discovered that the Canberra Business Council has written to the Chief Minister three times and raised very serious issues in which this Bill is at fault.
The Chief Minister rushed into legislation which was wrong from the beginning. She has acknowledged that, because she has already amended it by determination. She issued a determination to make a significant change to it. At the same time this consultative Government did not consult with any of the people that were affected by it. She has had plenty of advice since that what she did was wrong, and she continues to try to avoid the issue. She says that she did not bring her amendments forward because it would offend against the standing orders. That did not stop her putting out a determination to make a major change to her own legislation within a matter of days. She partly accepted what the Business Council and the Law Society told her, but only in one respect. There are a number of major issues to which these people take exception and on which they find her legislation at fault.
It is all very well to say that we cannot do it until next year. There is an interesting matter of retrospectivity here. Her own determination was commented upon by Professor Whalan, who noted the retrospectivity. He said that the retrospectivity is in the interests of individuals and therefore he supports it. The very things that I am trying to achieve now to put her legislation onto a sound footing have exactly the same connotations.
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