INFANTS’ CUSTODY AND SETTLEMENTS (REPEAL) BILL 1995

Debate resumed from 9 May 1995, on motion by Mr Humphries:

That this Bill be agreed to in principle.

MR CONNOLLY (3.59): Mr Speaker, my colleague was just reminding me that we did not seem to have those amendments on our desks, although no doubt they were put on the amendments pile, or they may have been - - -

MR SPEAKER: For the previous legislation?

Ms McRae: Yes, for the previous Bill.

MR CONNOLLY: Anyway, I accept all that Mr Humphries says. I should also say that at the beginning of that debate I would also have been somewhat distracted because I had been having a conversation with Mrs Carnell and Mr Moore in relation to some material that we had been requesting in question time and the possibility of moving a motion to require that material to be tabled. Mrs Carnell did give me an undertaking, which I accept, that that material will be circulated as soon as it is available. We will expect members to get the information I asked for about VMOs in the next few days. I put that on the record.

Mrs Carnell: I did not say “in the next few days”. I said “as soon as I have it, before the next sitting”.

Mr De Domenico: Before the next sitting.

MR SPEAKER: Order! Mr Connolly has the floor.

MR CONNOLLY: We shall see when we get it, if we get it.

In relation to the Infants’ Custody and Settlements (Repeal) Bill, Mr Humphries no doubt sees this as the start of a whole new era in cleaning old legislation out of the stables - something that he waxed lyrical about in opposition. This Act is no longer of any particular significance or importance. I did, however, when I first saw the Bill, raise a concern by way of letter to the Attorney seeking his assurance that orders made under the old legislation would be very easily registrable under the Family Law Act. I received a reply which I was going to bring down and have incorporated in Hansard, but I did not bring it down. Nonetheless, the tenor of that reply was that the rights created under that order would still be in force despite the repeal of the Act. It is resolved by section 38 of the Acts Interpretation Act. The advice of the Attorney-General’s Department, conveyed by the Attorney, is that there would be no difficulty and that such an old order under the now repealed Act can easily be registrable under the Family Law Act. Having been assured of that, and reading it into the record here so that, should there be any question, people are satisfied, the Opposition supports this measure of tidying up an Act which was once important but which has been overtaken by events.

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