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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 14 Hansard (11 December) . . Page.. 4665 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

So, Mr Speaker, what I am asking the Assembly to do is, if they still have significant doubts about this Bill, to adjourn it again until the new actuarial report is on the table and assessed properly. Also, I think it would be a very sensible approach for the Assembly to have a look at the training levy Bill which we will have on the table in February or very early in the new year. We believe that that is the sensible approach for this Assembly. There is absolutely no reason for this Bill to be debated here today.

Mr Speaker, I come back to the central point here. What we believe we should not do is increase the benefits for existing employees if there is any chance that that is at the expense of the unemployed or at the expense of training. There is still a very real chance that that is the case. Also, Mr Speaker, there is a very real chance - it is not even a real chance; it is inevitable - that going down this path will mean that the costs of building in the ACT will be more than they are in New South Wales and in some other States as well. If that is the case, Mr Speaker, I believe that we have to look very long and very hard at whether this Bill is in the interests of the broad Canberra community or whether we are passing a piece of legislation that could be detrimental to the broad Canberra community, inasmuch as increasing prices at the - - -

Mr Moore: By that you mean business. The broad Canberra community is business in your mind; is that right?

MRS CARNELL: Do not be silly, Michael. Mr Speaker, we believe very strongly that things like the cost of houses and the affordability of houses are in the interests of the broad Canberra community. Mr Moore has made the comment that it is somehow only in the interests of business. The reality is that these sorts of costs are always passed on. At the end of the day, it is the customer who pays business expenses. That is the way it works, particularly in circumstances like this, where the expense is spread equally right across the whole sector. So, it is not business that pays, Mr Speaker; it is the consumer who ends up paying.

Unless members of this Assembly are absolutely confident that this legislation will not increase the costs of building, will not increase the costs of houses and will not be detrimental to training unemployed people or new employees entering the industry, I believe that they should oppose this legislation or, at the very least, adjourn it until they can be confident that that is the case.

MR DE DOMENICO (Minister for Urban Services and Minister for Business, Employment and Tourism) (11.01): I seek leave to speak again, Mr Speaker.

Leave granted.

MR DE DOMENICO: Mr Speaker, this is a very important issue, and I thank members for allowing me to speak again. First of all, I would like to comment on what Mr Moore had to say. Mr Moore, for the first time that I can recollect, quoted something without quoting the full text of it. Mr Moore said that the thing that convinced him - and he quoted - - -

Mr Moore: Paragraph 62.

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