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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 8 Hansard (27 June) . . Page.. 2437 ..

MR SPEAKER: Repetition, Mr Whitecross.

MR WHITECROSS: There are the 300 jobs. There is the $500,000 of payroll tax. There is the fact that just about every consumer in the city and just about every customer in the city thinks this is a dud. The backbench, Mr Speaker - - -

Mrs Carnell: I take a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think we have to come back to relevance again. Would you ask Mr Whitecross to sit down?

MR SPEAKER: Would you sit down please, Mr Whitecross, while a point of order is being taken?

Mrs Carnell: Mr Speaker, at this stage it would appear that Mr Whitecross is arguing against the legislation. That would tend to mean he is arguing in favour of a sunset clause, although I do not think he is. Maybe he should get back to the point.

MR SPEAKER: I uphold the point of order. I also would remind you about repetition.

Mr Berry: Talk about the squabble in the party room. That is not bad.

MR WHITECROSS: I am getting to that, Mr Berry. That is why Mrs Carnell keeps bobbing up. She is trying to stop me getting to it. Mr Speaker, I will bear in mind your comments. The fact is that the Liberals are sick to their stomachs about that. That is why, Mr Speaker, the Liberal Party have spent every spare moment they have had out of the chamber today madly trying to think of a way of prising themselves out of the mess they have got themselves into. Mrs Carnell has led a backbench revolt against her own Minister's legislation because they know they are on a dud.

MR SPEAKER: Order! Relevance.

MR WHITECROSS: Mr Speaker, they thought about sending it off to a committee but they could not figure out how to without looking like they were backing down. They thought about trying to defer it somehow. The only thing they could come up with which looked vaguely like a face-saver on this legislation, which they know is a dud, which is making them sick, is a sunset clause.

MR SPEAKER: Order! Repetition.

MR WHITECROSS: Mr Speaker, it is not going to save them. This Assembly should reject it out of hand for the transparent nonsense that it is. They have decided to go down this course. It is a bad course. It is a course which we have been debating tonight. We have been highlighting why it is a bad course, Mr Speaker. The best the Liberals can do to try to extricate themselves from the mess they have got into is a sunset clause. Mr Speaker, Mrs Carnell does not have the decency and the integrity to come in here and say, "It is a dud policy; it is dud legislation. I am sorry and I withdraw it". That is what she should do. We have this sunset clause instead, Mr Speaker. We should reject it because it is a bad idea, and we should reject the legislation because the legislation is a dud.

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