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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 2 Hansard (27 February) . . Page.. 618 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

and our next sitting, the 4.00 am closure law expires. If ultimately - I am just putting it at "if" - the Assembly decides to endorse a recommendation from the trial that says we should continue the 4.00 am closing, it is easier to do that if the thing is already on foot than to resurrect - - -

Mr Whitecross: And what if they say the opposite?

MR HUMPHRIES: Okay; let us assume they say the opposite. Suppose they say that we should not do this anymore. It is very simple then to simply discontinue the trial. There is no problem at all with that. But the alternative in this situation is that, if what those opposite suggest is the case, we would end up potentially having 4.00 am closing until 31 March this year, then no restriction on trading hours until, say, 10 September this year, and then 4.00 am closing again from 10 September onwards. Three different periods throughout the year makes no sense at all.

Mr Moore: You asked for time for the trial, and if you push this through now we will not be able to trust you with this sort of thing again.

MR HUMPHRIES: Come on, Mr Moore!

Mr Moore: You asked for time for a trial, you were given it, and you are using it as an incremental step.

MR HUMPHRIES: I am not using it as an incremental step. I simply ask for the time to assess the trial. When we set that period for the end of the trial, we did not consider the consequences of having to assess a proper empirical study of this matter and then have time for the Assembly to assess that result. There is no way the Assembly could ever have assessed the results of a trial that was ending a few weeks before the point at which the period of 4.00 am closing was to end. It was always impossible.

I put one salient fact before this Assembly. The Australian Hotels Association has opposed very strongly the 4.00 am closure, but they say to this Assembly, "Extend the trial". Why? Is it not obvious, even to those who are a little bit slow at this time of the evening, why they want to extend the trial? They do not want the inconvenience of having their members go off the trial and have to go back on it later in the year if the trial is re-endorsed. That makes a lot of sense to me. If it is good enough for the Australian Hotels Association, why it not good enough for those opposite?

On the question of tabletop dancing, I am not a wowser. I have no objections at all to tabletop dancing. If people want to flash their genitalia for money, that is fantastic. My party supports legalised prostitution in this Territory. My party supports the sale of X-rated videos. Why should I get hung up about tabletop dancing? I have no objection to those things. I am not talking about people forcing their genitalia down my throat, so to speak. I am sorry; that was badly put. I withdraw that. I am not talking about them putting it in the public arena. I am not talking about them imposing their values on me. I am talking about them doing it in certain places in the Territory.

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