Page 3171 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 20 September 1994
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hospitality industry. After tonight, it will be able to say, "We have got the piece of legislation through. We have got the amendments through. Level or not, this is the playing field. This is the known outcome". But, quite clearly, they have to understand that, with the change of one vote in this Assembly, that could all be turned on its head.
I remember the club industry in particular and the Hotels Association mounting a quite successful vigorous campaign publicly and within its membership, as it had a legitimate right to do, about this issue, saying that they wanted to have certainty; that they wanted a result that applied equally across the industry, that did not commercially disadvantage anybody within the industry or that did not disadvantage one part of the industry as against another part of the industry. That is not what they are getting with this range of amendments, because Ms Szuty has quite clearly said that the fundamental position that she has adopted is based on a conviction that the information is the be-all and end-all; that it represents an accurate assessment of this standard. I quite deliberately wrote down Ms Szuty's words. She said, "I will reconsider my vote, my position, if it can be demonstrated that this standard does not achieve what it is alleged that it will". We have heard all ready - - -
Mr Kaine: In that case we will have to get the standard replaced, will we not?
MR LAMONT: Is that not interesting? I heard from Mr Kaine - and I need to get this on the record - "Then we will change the standard".
Mr Kaine: If the standard does not achieve what you are claiming for it, you change the standard. You change it if it is not good enough.
MR LAMONT: Mr Kaine is saying, "We recognise now that we are not going to achieve what we have set out to achieve here tonight; so in five years' time, when the standard changes, we will change too". That is the reality of it. The logic of it, Mr De Domenico, is quite clear.
In listening to the debate, I understood Ms Szuty to say - I repeat it - that, if this standard does not achieve the clean air quality necessary or deemed acceptable, then she will change her vote. I believe that it is technically feasible to demonstrate that it is not acceptable.
Mr Kaine: Why have you not demonstrated it?
MR LAMONT: Because I had not realised that Ms Szuty was prepared, in those circumstances, to change her vote. But I also say that it has been acknowledged by me in this chamber, as the Minister responsible for occupational health and safety in the ACT and as the Minister who introduced into this Assembly the code that I provided to the committee at the first opportunity, that my council has strong concerns about the ability of this standard to deliver the outcome that people are attesting to.
Ms Szuty, as a member of the Government, I look forward to assisting you to bring this matter on for further debate and/or rescission, because it is obvious that there are enough votes on the floor of the chamber tonight to pass the amendments as proposed. I look forward to assisting you to revoke these amendments in a very short space of time.
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