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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 10 Hansard (5 September) . . Page.. 3192 ..

MR SPEAKER: No; but the member's time has expired.

MR WHITECROSS: Mr Speaker, can I get an extension of time?

MR SPEAKER: The maximum I could give you is 21/2 minutes.

MR WHITECROSS: I will take it. (Extension of time granted) There can be no possible urgency to this matter. The fact is that the world will not end if this legislation is not passed today. All that will happen is that some shoppers will be allowed to shop. That is not what I would call an urgent matter. There are some urgent issues which might motivate the Minister. One is the urgent requirement of the Government to get the embarrassment of having introduced a bad law to close town centre supermarkets early over with. There is an urgency in the Government getting over the embarrassment of having messed up the original legislation. Of course, they also want to get over the embarrassment of the fact that Mr De Domenico, who introduced the original legislation, did not get his legislation right and now Mr Humphries has to take over the matter and fix up the mistakes in Mr De Domenico's legislation. It should be noted that a piece of legislation introduced by Mr De Domenico in June is now being amended by his colleague Mr Humphries only two months later.

The only reasons for urgency are the embarrassment of the Government about trying to close supermarkets early, the embarrassment of the Government about having got it wrong and the embarrassment of the Government about the fact that Mr De Domenico had to be taken off the case because he was not up to the job. They are the embarrassments. This is urgent today only because of their stuff-ups. They are not good enough reasons for us to be treating this as an urgent matter. Instead, we ought to be telling this Government that we will come back when we have had a proper chance to have a think about this and a proper chance to consider the implications. Declaring something urgent should be done only when there is a genuine urgency, when something bad is going to happen if we do not pass the legislation, when there is some big threat to the revenue, not so that Mr Humphries can get his own way and can cover up his embarrassment about this dreadful policy. It is an embarrassment not just to the Government but, unfortunately, to the people of the ACT, who all disagree with this legislation.

Mr Berry: And the Greens.

MR WHITECROSS: It is an embarrassment to the Greens as well, as Mr Berry says. Mr Speaker, this is not an urgent Bill, and it should not be treated urgently.

MS HORODNY (5.07): Mr Speaker, I think it is very fair for this to be called an urgent Bill. We have had the substantive debate about whether shops in the town centres should or should not stay open. That debate has already gone on in this place and this Assembly agreed - it was an Assembly decision - to - - -

MR SPEAKER: Miss Horodny, the time for the discussion has concluded.

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