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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 14 Hansard (12 December) . . Page.. 4865 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

We will not be supporting Mr Moore's motion - not because of any desire to stifle debate, but because we believe that debate should have an end, that there is a time for action and that that time has arrived, and that we have a responsibility to the ACT community to make some decisions. We will not be supporting Mr Moore's proposal, but we will be working to ensure that we resolve the issues raised by Mr Humphries's legislation.

MR MOORE (6.04), in reply: I am going to close the debate on this motion. Mr Speaker, it is very interesting that Mr Whitecross suggests that I claimed that circulating my drafting instructions was a way of informing people of my amendments. Mr Whitecross, I think you have taken that out of context. All I was explaining was that I did it to make sure that everybody understood where I was going. Of course it was not enough to let people understand what would be done to the Bill; but at least it gave them an indication of what I intended, so that reading the amendments would be a little easier when the time came. I was trying to facilitate the process in the best way I could, as indeed I will try to facilitate the process this evening.

Mr Whitecross said that the main reason I had given as to why this legislation should be referred to the Planning and Environment Committee was a policy issue. No, Mr Whitecross, that is not the only reason. I will just put that into perspective for you. A short time after I began my speech at the in-principle stage, the debate was interrupted while we had another debate. When my time expired, I sought an extension, which was granted. Whereas normally I would have been able to spend 15 minutes, plus an extension of 71/2 minutes, on this occasion on a speech I had prepared I was not able to. Because my speech was so relevant to the issues at hand and so relevant to the sorts of issues that ought to be considered in referring the Bill to the Planning and Environment Committee, I completed it in speaking to this motion.

Mr Whitecross, there is a series of other reasons why I believe the Bill ought to go to the Planning and Environment Committee. The first concerns the role of the Metropolitan Policy Plan in the legislation. My amendment concerning that refers to clause 9 of Mr Humphries's Bill and section 15 of the Act. Secondly, I believe it appropriate that we discuss whether or not the Planning and Environment Committee ought to be able to initiate variations to the Territory Plan. I have spoken at some length with the Greens. We had to come to a very quick conclusion that because of the way that I could prepare drafting instructions it would be better for such proposals to come not from the Planning and Environment Committee but from the Assembly as a whole. That was a compromise I made, but I have not had time to have a good consideration of that issue or time to consider to what extent it would interfere with the separation of powers. This is a fundamental issue that the Planning and Environment Committee could consider.

Ms McRae: Did it come out of Stein? No. Did it come out of any of the other inquiries? No.

MR MOORE: I hear Ms McRae parroting, "Did it come out of Stein?". No, it did not. Neither did about three-quarters of the Bill in front of us now, Ms McRae. That says something about the fact that Labor has agreed with the Liberals that they are going to put this Bill through. It does not matter what else happens. They are going to

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