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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 9 Hansard (27 August) . . Page.. 2631 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

It is clearly not a black-and-white issue. There are good arguments on both sides. We simply do not know. When Mr Osborne was suggesting this in the first place as a solution, I said to him and to the Attorney-General as well that if we are going to entertain it at all it should be done as a study and it should be a real study. The only study I am interested in is the sort Ms Follett described - a very careful study, one based not on a media whip-up of what the harm is that we are trying to deal with but on genuine information about the sort of harm that is being done.

I have known one of the consultants for some years and I have a great deal of respect for that consultant, and I believe that we can expect to see a very good job done. I would like to emphasise, and I am conscious that he is sitting in the gallery, that it is very important that the issues raised by Ms Follett are carried through. In the end, if the restrictions, which are causing some difficulty for licensees, are achieving nothing in real terms, even if they appear to be handy for a political debate, then we ought not to entertain them. Members of this Assembly have on quite a number of issues been able to work together to see beyond that political grandstanding. On many issues, of course, we have gone for the political grandstanding, and certainly I have been part of that, too.

Ms Tucker: Now and again.

MR MOORE: Just occasionally. On quite a number of very difficult and complicated issues, and I will use the issue of prostitution as one good example, the Assembly very carefully avoided the political grandstanding and went for a very careful consideration, a long process that came up with laws that have been no trouble to any member of the Assembly since, even though they were very radical laws compared with what was going on in the rest of Australia. Slowly, other parts of Australia seem to be following that. I have seen a report from the South Australian Parliament just recently making a recommendation. This study does need to be a very good study and does need to give us the opportunity to see, as closely as we can measure, that the harm associated with alcohol is being reduced. The clear message coming from everybody who has spoken today is that we should be looking at how to reduce that harm and at the same time allow people who are going to use alcohol sensibly to do so. I look forward to the study being carried out carefully and coming up with a result we can all study and, hopefully, then draw appropriate conclusions from that will be helpful in giving us a healthier society.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General) (4.36), in reply: I indicate my thanks to members for what was generally support for the concept of this trial. I note that the debate previously about Mr Osborne's Bill, which facilitated this trial, was a slightly different debate from the one we are having now. There seems to be an acceptance by members that the trial is a good thing and ought to go ahead.

Mr Moore: Accepting that the trial is going to go ahead, now they are saying, "Let us make the best of it".

MR HUMPHRIES: Indeed, that is true. I note Ms Follett's comments that it is very foolish to pretend that this is a black or white issue. I would agree with that point of view and say that holding a trial is acknowledging that fact. If you do not hold a trial you can never find out whether we are in the black or in the white on this sort of issue.

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