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Mr Moore: I think you ought to qualify that.

MR CONNOLLY: I have some concerns about ad hominem retrospective legislation designed to protect a specific individual from a specific legal action, but I am sure that no-one would ever propose such an extraordinary infringement on individuals' rights. That type of legislation, I am sure, Mr Moore, we will never have to consider in this chamber, because people may well think better of supporting such a proposal as they get to the door of the chamber. Mr Humphries, I recall, in some statements of legal policy last year, made much of how dreadful retrospective legislation is, and it is ironic that we are here debating this retrospective legislation; but, as I say, we have no difficulty with that. This was announced on 17 August.

Mr Moore: That is the qualification I meant before. That was what I meant by a qualification - retrospective legislation when you have made a preliminary announcement.

MR CONNOLLY: I see. I thought it might have been something else. Yes, we have no difficulty with that in principle. There has been an indication that we will support the Bill in principle. There are some issues about the amendments, though, that we want to look at. The concern I have is that they appear, on their face, to limit very substantially the options for the small petrol market. In those examples that I referred to earlier, Bill Stefaniak would be on the driveway loudly lamenting the forced closure of a petrol station which was closing simply as a result of ordinary market dynamics. The petroleum industry is notorious for this around Australia; people come in, people go out.

In a number of cases where sites did close I know for a fact that the sites were reopened not by the oil company, not as an oil company owned and operated site, but by franchisees who were part of a family of other franchisees. There is nothing surprising or sinister about that. There are people in the business of running petrol stations who run them well and profitably. There are plenty of those in this town. They are good business people. It is not surprising that they might seek to buy another site. If they have two sons who have been working in the business - and I think there is an example of this - the good and successful small business person might well seek to assist in establishing their two sons, or son and daughter, or two daughters, in the same type of business, and there is nothing wrong with that. That is the nature of small business. I am a little concerned that a limitation can prevent that from occurring.

Mr Humphries: I can grant exemptions, Terry.

MR CONNOLLY: Mr Humphries says that he can grant exemptions. There is a slightly peculiar situation now where the executive Government will decide who can or cannot run a small business. An analogy here would be the issue of the large shopping centre versus the small shops. There is a growing consensus that there may be some limitation on establishing a new large supermarket. If somebody wanted to create a new large supermarket in Tuggeranong I am sure that we would all say, “No, we are not going to

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