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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 13 Hansard (3 December) . . Page.. 4296 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

How somebody could manage avoidance in this situation is beyond me, and I would be delighted if Mr Humphries could explain how it is that somebody is going to say, "Well, no; I will get around this", other than perhaps by making sure they do not go to court by not committing a crime. The penalties are not there.

Mr Speaker, I think this is a very poorly thought out, half-baked idea, and the logical thing for Mr Humphries to do is to allow this debate to be adjourned now and perhaps let this Bill die. If he is not prepared to do that, then what he should do is go back. If he is not prepared to do that, because he has a budget - and, after all, the economic rationalists will be saying that much more important than having social justice is to make sure that we have the money coming in and to make sure that we can balance the budget - if that is the highest priority for him, then when this legislation goes through, Mr Humphries, take the ideas away; do it properly; and when we have a better system in place come back, put the better system in place, and use this purely as a temporary measure to let us get a better system in place. If it goes through, use it as a temporary measure. It is time now to start thinking about the real issues that are involved here.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill agreed to in principle.

Bill, by leave, taken as a whole

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General) (11.37): I want to use a legitimate means to respond to Mr Moore without having to suspend standing orders or seek leave. Mr Speaker, I just want to make a few comments.

Mr Moore: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I think that suggesting that seeking leave was not legitimate is hardly appropriate from Mr Humphries. Surely seeking leave, and being granted it by the Assembly, is legitimate.

MR HUMPHRIES: If Mr Moore thought I was suggesting he was a bastard, then of course I withdraw that suggestion. It had no connection whatsoever with illegitimacy, Mr Speaker.

Mr Moore: I am happy to live with that, Mr Speaker.

MR HUMPHRIES: I am sure you have to live with that, Mr Moore. You have heard it said of you plenty of times. Mr Speaker, I want to make a few comments about this. Mr Moore says we should use this as an interim measure, find some better ways of doing it properly in the future and come back. I still have not heard from Mr Moore how we would do it better in the future. I still do not believe that anything he suggested today is an improvement on the present situation. I certainly reject the suggestion that you can get better social justice by having a more flexible system that somehow apportions the size of the penalty according to some other criteria, because the question has to be asked:

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