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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 8 Hansard (25 June) . . Page.. 2065 ..

MR HUMPHRIES: As the Minister who has charge of this within the Government at the moment, I will take that question. Let me say, first of all, that it would behove those opposite to discontinue misleading people about what it is that is proposed with this particular package of legislation. It may suit your purposes to rely on the hysteria which the Supermarket Institute is trying to generate about this proposal, to rely on the big businesses that are running this kind of campaign, but in doing so you also mislead the people of the ACT. The 306 jobs, to be precise, which are referred to, coincidentally, in the Opposition's and the Supermarket Institute's campaign are the total sum of those jobs offered in all of those supermarkets in the ACT.

Mrs Carnell: Casual and part time.

MR HUMPHRIES: Casual and part time, full time as well - - -

Mr Berry: Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. I know that the Government is keen to hide the incompetence of - - -

MR SPEAKER: What is your point of order?

Mr Berry: Mr Humphries may have inadvertently misled the chamber when he said that he was the Minister who had carriage of this matter. Mr De Domenico introduced the Trading Hours Bill and surely has carriage of the matter, and he ought to have - - -

Mrs Carnell: Mr Speaker, Mr Humphries does have carriage of the matter.

MR SPEAKER: There is no point of order. Mr Humphries has carriage of the matter. The Chief Minister has indicated so. Please continue, Mr Humphries.

Mr Berry: I take a point of order, Mr Speaker. If Mr Humphries does have carriage of the matter, I wonder whether Mrs Carnell would mind tabling the administrative arrangements which gave rise to those changes, or is it just because she is embarrassed about the incompetent Mr De Domenico?

MR SPEAKER: There is no point of order. Resume your seat. Please continue, Mr Humphries.

An incident having occurred in the gallery -

MR SPEAKER: If there is another incident, I shall be obliged to take action. People are very welcome to come in here and listen to debate and the somewhat feisty question time but not to interrupt.

MR HUMPHRIES: As I said before, there is a clear attempt to misrepresent what is going on with this legislation. First of all, the figure of 306 jobs represents basically all the jobs in the supermarkets that we are talking about - not just a certain proportion of them but all of them. Mr Speaker, if the Government was proposing to close the supermarkets altogether, you could well understand an argument that said that 306 jobs

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