Page 4585 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 6 December 1994
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I take the opportunity to move as an amendment to Mrs Carnell's amendment:
After proposed paragraph 171B(b), insert the following new paragraph:
"(c) an offence under subsection 162(2) of cultivating, or participating in the cultivation of, not more than 5 cannabis plants.".
That would add something to the Bill that is not there.
MR BERRY (Manager of Government Business) (5.22): I want to talk about a few issues that are important in the scheme of things as they relate to this debate. I know that the Liberals were in support of bringing circuses to the ACT, but I never thought they would want to bring this one. They have brought all the bells and whistles and clowns, all of the issues that brought criticism on this Assembly in past years. Mrs Carnell, you would not remember past years, but I will tell you who does. I do and Trevor Kaine does, and he does not want to go through that again. Mr Kaine would remember a prominent Liberal who rated a mention very often in the electronic and printed media - Speaker Prowse, with the monkey bites and all of that. I suggest that there are a few monkey bite scars over there today.
Last week we saw one of the silliest pieces of legislation ever developed in this place, and it was developed in a most silly way. For somebody like Mr Stevenson to support such a thing surprised me. Mr Stevenson has said over and over again that he does not like to see Bills rushed through this place, but last week he must have been salivating at the opportunity to see hempen sports coats hanging on every street corner, and he thought this might have been the way to get there. It was not. It was a silly piece of law. It was inspired out of silliness, and it made this Assembly look absolutely stupid. I do not mind it, as it has turned out, because the circus has worn it, and so they ought to have. The Liberal Party has worn it, Mr Moore has worn it, and Mr Stevenson, though he might think he has gone unnoticed in the debate, has worn it too.
We now have an opportunity to get rid of the effects of the loopy decision making that went on in this Assembly. It does not go to the issue of the Labor Party's policy, as Mr Humphries put it; the Labor Party's policy is one with which we are comfortable. It goes to how you develop legislation and what you say in it. The pictures last week of people dying with cancer having to cultivate hemp in the backyard to medicate themselves and of people going blind with glaucoma growing hemp in the backyard to medicate themselves, was the sort of loopy stuff you developed, and it gave rise to quite legitimate concerns about the way this silly amendment would affect the community.
I remember not too long ago, when Mr Prowse, that prominent Liberal, was with us, how we had the great debate about fluoride. It was on again, off again, on again, off again. You never knew from one week to the next what was going to happen with fluoride. Mr Prowse, bearing his Liberal badge, would be out there poised to press the button to switch it off at every opportunity, and Mr Kaine was sitting there helpless, saying, "I wish I could stop him; I wish I could stop him". I will bet that he was saying the same thing a week ago: "I wish I could stop them; I wish I could stop them".
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