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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 2 Hansard (25 February) . . Page.. 365 ..

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, I am quite happy not to talk about - - -

MR SPEAKER: Mr Humphries, there is a possibility we may have drifted into that, so I would ask you not to debate the substantive motion in relation to that media release.

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, to suspend standing orders today to facilitate bringing on debate on this matter this week, I think, does enormous harm to the prospects of a number of businesses and, indeed, of workers in this Territory being able to properly organise their affairs to cope with a very sudden change in policy on the part not of the Government, as Mr Berry said, not the Government, which the Industrial Relations Commission said ought to make the decision in this matter, but the Assembly.

I am quite in favour of debating the issues in Mr Berry's Bill. I think it is appropriate to debate those issues. But I think to debate them in the course of this week with indecent haste, with a matter that Mr Berry could have brought forward, could even have foreshadowed, some weeks ago but did not, is quite an abuse of the parliamentary process. Why did Mr Berry not announce, even at the time the decision was handed down by the Industrial Relations Commission, that he was going to put out the legislation? Why?

MR MOORE (11.22): In speaking to the suspension of standing orders, I must say that in some ways I take some responsibility for this. When Mr Berry spoke to me about the substantive issue of putting this legislation up and said he wanted to debate it urgently, we had a discussion about whether this was an urgent Bill in the formal sense of the standing orders or whether we wanted just to debate it urgently.

My response to Mr Berry at the time was that, whilst I could understand what he was trying to do and in principle I was supporting the concept of what he was trying to achieve - to stop having some workers' holiday taken away from them - I thought it would be appropriate that the Assembly have the maximum time possible to have a look at the legislation, within the context of also getting it through in time to protect the workers' right to have that holiday, which they have had for 30 years or so and, hopefully, they will have for another 30 years. Having had that discussion, I suggested to Mr Berry that he ought to seek to introduce it as early as possible in the sitting so that we would then have enough time to look at it - a particularly unusual thing to do; nevertheless, one that would provide members with the most opportunity to see it.

When I hear the arguments put by Mr Humphries, I do not hear arguments about what is in the best interests of the piece of legislation but, rather, the old tactic that if you can stop Mr Berry tabling the legislation today, if you can stop it being debated this week and deal with it in April, the first of the holidays has gone. It is an old policy technique: The longer the delay, the more effective it is likely to be in preventing that policy from going through. That is the sort of argument I hear from the Government.

Mr Humphries: If he had brought this in last week, I would have been happy to debate it this week.

Mrs Carnell: Why not give a month's notice?

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