Page 4612 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 15 December 1993
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Her defective legislation was effective from 15 September, and there are people who are victims of that legislation unless we change it. The longer we let it go, the more people are going to fall through the hole and the more people are going to be victims. Under her legislation, if they have to pay large sums of money by way of stamp duty, it is not refundable, unless the Chief Minister is going to put in retrospective legislation making it refundable. The present legislation does not provide for refunding.
These are major issues. They are major issues that need to be addressed now, not in six months' time. The Liberal Party is not interested in grandstanding on this issue. We made the point at the time the legislation was put on the table that it was defective, and we sought to amend it. But the Chief Minister, in her dogged, bull-headed, stubborn fashion, insisted that the legislation go through in its defective form. She herself has acknowledged that by putting through a determination that in fact amends one part of it. She has acknowledged only one of the defects in the law. There are a number of them. This will affect not only the business community. The activity level of business is going to affect the number of jobs available, and it is going to affect the revenue that Ms Follett collects. These matters are too substantial to just leave in abeyance for months to come.
I submit that the members of this Assembly should look at the rationality of the matter that is before them. Forget the Chief Minister's talk about grandstanding. She is the one who is grandstanding, because she made a major mistake with the legislation in the first place. For heaven's sake, let us deal with the matter. People are likely to fall through the cracks in her legislation, the very substantial financial cracks. Let us paper them over before it does substantial harm to individuals, if not to the community at large. I submit that the case for delaying debate on this matter has no substance to it. The argument for considering it now is very substantial. If the Assembly falls for the Chief Minister's cheap trick about political grandstanding and the like, a lot of people are going to suffer from it.
Question put:
That the motion (Mr Connolly's) be agreed to.
The Assembly voted -
AYES, 8 NOES, 9
Mr Berry Mrs Carnell
Mr Connolly Mr Cornwell
Ms Ellis Mr De Domenico
Ms Follett Mr Humphries
Mrs Grassby Mr Kaine
Mr Lamont Mr Moore
Ms McRae Mr Stevenson
Mr Wood Ms Szuty
Mr Westende
Question so resolved in the negative.
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