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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 7 Hansard (25 June) . . Page.. 2050 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

cannot be passed. I commend to members that they vote for the motion to send the amendments to the committee for examination and that we get on with dealing with the Health and Community Care Services (Validation of Fees and Charges) Bill. I am in the Assembly's hands.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General) (11.18): I can indicate that the Government would support that motion if Mr Berry indicated in further remarks that he will support the adjournment of debate on his Bill until such time as the Scrutiny of Bills Committee reports back. That is the normal course of events. If part of a Bill is referred to an Assembly committee, it is usual practice - in fact, it is invariably the practice - that debate on the Bill is adjourned until advice is received from the committee. That is the position Mr Berry would probably have argued for at some point in the past, and I would urge him to be consistent and to accept that on this occasion. If, however, he believes that we should press on and pass the Bill, it seems to me there is no reason why we should not also do the amendments. I think that is the appropriate and fair way of dealing with it.

MR WHITECROSS (Leader of the Opposition) (11.19): Mr Speaker, I would like to demur from Mr Humphries's approach on this. Mr Berry's motion sets out what I believe is the appropriate way of dealing with this. Mr Humphries suggested that when amendments are proposed to a Bill debate on the whole of the Bill is adjourned so that everything can be considered together. It needs to be understood that the amendments moved by Mr Humphries today actually have nothing to do with the Bill. The amendments that have been moved by the Attorney-General today actually bring up situations similar to the situation that is addressed in the Bill but they do not modify anything in Mr Berry's Bill. It is not as if we have to adjourn debate on the Bill because Mr Humphries is proposing to amend the terms of what Mr Berry has proposed. What Mr Humphries is proposing to do is to add onto the end of Mr Berry's Bill a whole series of other apparently problematic impositions of fees and charges and suggest that they ought to be dealt with as well. As Mr Berry has said, on the face of it, that seems okay; but they are really separate issues and I believe it is appropriate that they be dealt with separately.

The question then becomes: Why should we refer these to the Scrutiny of Bills Committee at all? Why should we not just pass them and take Mr Humphries's word for it? The reason why we should not adopt that approach, the reason why we should refer the amendments to the Scrutiny of Bills Committee for a report and the reason why if the Scrutiny of Bills Committee recommends in favour of them we should deal with them as a separate Bill in August is the principle that the imposition of fees and charges ought to go through a process of scrutiny by the Scrutiny of Bills Committee before it is dealt with in this place.

Mrs Carnell: But the fees and charges have been charged. They are not new fees and charges.

MR WHITECROSS: Mrs Carnell clearly does not understand her Attorney-General's amendments. What these amendments actually do is impose fees and charges in substitution for what they believe to be invalid determinations. Before we vote in this place on new fees and charges in substitution for ones which the Attorney-General now believes are invalid, they ought to be looked at by the Scrutiny of Bills Committee.

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