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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 13 Hansard (5 December) . . Page.. 4437 ..

MR WHITECROSS: Mr Speaker, Mr Berry's motion says to the Government, "We are very concerned about this. We think you should take up the advice of the - - -

Mrs Carnell: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would like to know where the motion says that. It is not on my sheet.

MR WHITECROSS: That is not a point of order, Mr Speaker.

MR SPEAKER: There is no point of order.

MR WHITECROSS: The motion says that you should take up the advice of the committee, carefully reconsider this and, in our opinion, bring forward retrospective legislation. I agree with one thing that Mr Moore said, and that is that we should not bring this to fruition today. Having made the point to the Government that we think this is a serious matter, we should adjourn the debate on this disallowance motion. We should give the Government a chance to come back to us with the appropriate legislation. That is what I believe should happen. As we have said and Mr Moore has acknowledged, if the Government takes that course we will support retrospective legislation to confirm the fees that have been invalidly determined by the Government's original determinations, as even their solicitor agrees and, on the face of it and in the opinion of Professor Whalan, also invalidly determined by Mrs Carnell's more recent determination.

The Attorney-General said one extraordinary thing which I cannot ignore. He said that it is not for this house to decide whether the determinations are valid or not valid. We are the parliament. This is our legislation. This is legislation made under our laws. It is the law of this parliament. It is absolutely appalling that the Attorney-General can come into this place and say that it s not for us to determine whether we agree with this legislation or do not agree with this legislation. I think it is a responsibility of members of this parliament to ensure that a significant piece of legislation, namely, the determination of fees and charges in relation to the use of the hospital, is valid and that when the people are billed they are billed validly so that we can protect the revenue of the Territory and avoid senseless and needless litigation about that validity down the track because Mr Humphries and Mrs Carnell are too stubborn to put this matter beyond doubt. To me, that is what the matter is about. It is about putting this matter beyond doubt.

As I said, we are not going to move to disallow it today. That was never our intention. Our intention was to make it clear to the Government that we do not agree with the course that they have followed. We want this confirmed by retrospective legislation so that the validity of the fees and charges can be put beyond doubt. The Labor Party will be moving an adjournment to ensure that the Government, having received a message from this house, Mr Moore and others, will go away and have a serious look at this. It is not good enough for Mr Humphries to leave this as a debate between lawyers. We need to be sure. This is about us in this parliament being sure that we have got a valid law about the fees and charges. I commend the proposal to adjourn the debate. I urge the Government not to get themselves bound up in some sort of desperate need to save face over this matter but just to accept the challenge of making sure that the fees and charges are valid.

Debate (on motion by Ms McRae) adjourned.

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