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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 6 Hansard (23 May) . . Page.. 1712 ..

MR MOORE (4.36): Mr Speaker, you have to give it to Mr Kaine: When he has no material to debate something, he does quite well; there is no question about that. The recommendation of the committee stated:

The Committee recommends that the Government establish a forum to provide ongoing monitoring and advice on the implementation of competition policy. Such a forum should include representatives of community, environmental, consumer, union, business and academic organisations.

It is not a particularly problematic thing. All the Minister has to do, basically, is nominate a number of people from those fields to provide advice, in the same way that the Minister for Education has his advisory council. But could this Minister do that? No, of course not. That looked like it was going to be too hard. It was the easiest thing he could have done. Instead, he just writes, "The Government does not support this recommendation".

The recommendation was quite sensible. It was a good recommendation for the Minister, and he had the opportunity to appoint this forum to provide that sort of monitoring and advice. But he decided just to ignore the Assembly committee that had supported the legislation, and that said, "There are some important issues that need monitoring". Now it has come back to haunt him. It was an action of simple incompetence. The Assembly had already made it very clear that we expect our reports to be taken seriously. We had already sent one back to the Education Minister for him to reconsider and redo. There was nothing difficult about what had been asked here. The only reason for ignoring it is that he could not be bothered.

Mr De Domenico: No, it is because I disagreed with the recommendation; because I disagreed with you.

MR MOORE: In that case, I cannot believe the stupidity. Instead of recognising how the numbers are going to fall in this Assembly, he thinks he can just say, "I disagree; therefore I am not going to do it". I am sorry, Mr De Domenico; it does not work that way. That is why it is that Ms Tucker has put up this very sensible motion, from a very sensible recommendation, a unanimous recommendation from the committee, and we are going to make you do it. It is about time you realised that you are a minority government - - -

Mr De Domenico: It is about time you realised that you do not control the joint. You might think you do.

MR MOORE: Mr Speaker, we get the same interjection as we had from Mr De Domenico at question time - that I should recognise that I do not control this Assembly. I have never suggested that I control the Assembly in any way at all. That, indeed, is your role, Mr Speaker, as illustrated very clearly at question time today when my dissent motion was adjourned against my wishes. That is the sort of nonsense we get from this would-be Minister - well, would-be-good Minister - in dealing with this sort of issue.

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