Page 4660 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 15 December 1993
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MRS CARNELL: No, what you said is simply not the truth. You referred to the AHA and the restaurant association. You said: "Does the AHA think this is a very good idea? Of course not". Well, you are quite right; the AHA and the Australian restaurateurs association think that these sorts of prospective powers are simply not acceptable. They believe that they will really cause huge problems for their industries.
Mr Berry: They all have little Liberal Party tickets burning holes in their pockets.
Mr Humphries: Anyone who opposes you must be a Liberal.
Mr Connolly: This is just playing politics in your usual cheap fashion.
MRS CARNELL: I was just making sure that the Hansard reflected exactly the reality of the situation. The reality is that the organisations and associations who are involved in this simply are not happy with the Bill. They are simply not happy with prospective powers. Mr Connolly was wrong again. I am the first to admit that in my interjection I was wrong, too. I am quite capable of saying that. I was wrong. Mr Connolly, how about you hopping up and saying, "I was wrong too". It is quite simple: "I was wrong too. But I was not only wrong in one interjection; I was wrong for 10 pages of Hansard". In fact you, Mr Connolly, tried to give the wrong impression. I will not say that you misled this house, but you certainly gave the wrong impression. You attempted to suggest to this house that by passing this very important amendment, but fairly minor amendment, the whole Food Act would fall over. They were your words. The whole thing would be useless. People would die in the streets and, to use Mr Berry's words, they would all be poisoned.
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (4.27): Madam Speaker, it is disappointing that the Liberals choose to play politics in this fashion. It is the prospective offence on which the power to enter and search hinges. I do not see why it is a good thing to have these prospective powers in relation to animal welfare and gas, both of which were passed by this Assembly in identical terms, with the support of the Opposition, but a bad thing to have them in relation to the Health Act. The health regulations from which I quoted in their old form from the 1930s do give these broad and often unfettered search powers. It is unfortunate that the Opposition wants to go back.
We have been open about the type of advice the Government has acted on. We have circulated it to members. It indicates that there are broad search and seizure powers throughout Australia. Interestingly, the area where there is no formal seizure power is the Northern Territory. In that piece of advice we were given an example in the Northern Territory. Although it is acknowledged that they did not have the power to do so, they did exactly the sort of thing that we put this in place to deal with.
Mr Moore: Tell us about the example in the Northern Territory. Can you tell us about that one?
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