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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 13 Hansard (5 December) . . Page.. 4435 ..

Mr Berry: We are the legislators.

MR HUMPHRIES: But there is another course of action, a much more sensible course of action, open to us, and that is to await further advice and confirm whether the course of action we have already taken is the right one or the course of action that Professor Whalan suggested might be better as the course of action we should take. That is what I say we should do.

However, let me emphasise that I think that the motion put forward by Mr Berry today is very inappropriate. I ask the Assembly not to adjourn it but to reject it today. Mr Berry has come forward and said, "We are going to teach you a lesson or make a point by not just urging you to urgently engage in the process of getting a second opinion or a third opinion" - we are already doing that; we do not need to be told to do that - "but by actually disallowing the collection of fees under that determination as our way of making this point. We are going to disallow the determination of fees". I want to emphasise to members how very dangerous that course of action is. What it means is that, even if we legislate retrospectively next week, say on Thursday next week, having introduced a Bill on Tuesday, there will be a period of one week in which the Government, strictly speaking, is illegally collecting those extra fees. What Mr Berry presumably urges us to do - - -

Mr Whitecross: We might be already.

MR HUMPHRIES: As I say, our advice is that we are legally collecting those fees at the moment.

Mr Whitecross: But you might not be.

MR HUMPHRIES: We might not. That is right. Mr Berry's motion makes it certainly illegal to collect those fees. At the moment they may or may not be legal. Mr Berry is saying that we should certainly make them illegal.

Mr Berry: No.

MR HUMPHRIES: You are, Mr Berry. That is what you are saying. You are saying that we should render the collection of the fees for the next week illegal. We might remedy that problem in a week's time by passing legislation to make them legal retrospectively, but Mr Berry is saying that we should actually contemplate the need to make retrospective legislation by making it certain that we are going to have the need. Why? What is the point of doing that? There is no point in doing that. It is a silly course of action. It is bad law-making. I would urge the Assembly not to go down this path. Reject this motion and let us come back next week with either an affirmation of our original determination or legislation to fix the problem that was not fixed before.

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