Page 2577 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 24 August 1994
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Mr Stevenson: It is the size of the title of a Bill.
MR MOORE: The notice also identifies where the people can get in touch with the Health Complaints Unit. The heading, as Mr Stevenson interjects, is the size of the title of a Bill.
Madam Speaker, it also means that ordinary people with a problem will know exactly where to take that problem. It does not mean to say that they have some incredible power to resolve the issue then and there. It means that they can go through the process that is set out in the Health Complaints Act. We are just suggesting a very small improvement to a very good Act, to empower people to deal with the medical profession - and I am using that term in its broadest possible sense. It is not an attempt in any way to pick on doctors or to pick on natural therapists, but rather to ensure that the balance of power is such that people know that they have somewhere they can go to have issues of concern to them dealt with. Madam Speaker, I commend this Bill to the house.
Debate (on motion by Mr Connolly) adjourned.
DISCHARGE OF ORDER OF THE DAY
MR STEVENSON (11.31): Madam Speaker, in accordance with standing order 152, I move:
That order of the day No. 1, private members business, relating to the Electors Initiative and Referendum Bill 1994, be discharged from the notice paper.
As members will recall, in June this year, I reintroduced a Bill that I had initially introduced nine months ago - the Voice of the Electorate Bill - to give citizens the right to call binding referendums. I reintroduced that Bill with amendments after another look at it by the Scrutiny of Bills Committee. I left in the Bill a number of things that were there from the start. The first, and most important, is the fact that the Electors Initiative and Referendum Bill gives the people of Canberra the right to have a binding say on legislation, the right to have a say on what happens in their lives.
As someone said very recently, "The community does not want any more power for politicians". That is a quote. The Bill that I introduced does not give any more power to politicians. Specifically, it does not give the politicians the power to ignore the referendum, to ignore the will of the people. One might ask, "But does the legislation in the ACT allow a Bill to be binding where the people in the ACT have decided, by referendum, that something is binding?". The answer to that is simple. The Bill went before the Scrutiny of Bills Committee three times. Each time it was gone over in detail. I note that Mr Humphries nods his head. That is quite reasonable, because Mr Humphries is a member of the Scrutiny of Bills Committee. Mr Humphries is also a lawyer.
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