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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 7 Hansard (26 June) . . Page.. 2160 ..

MR HUMPHRIES: That was in 1994, Mr Berry. Pay attention. The guy behind you was the Minister at the time. Subsection (2) states:

If, at the request of a conservation officer, a person fails to pay the fee for entry into a reserved area, he or she shall not enter the area.

Penalty: $2,000.

If, as Mr Corbell so earnestly asserts, the Australian Labor Party does not believe in entry fees for nature parks in the ACT, why did the Labor Party introduce that provision into the Nature Conservation Act 1980? Why, Mr Corbell? The record shows that Mr Corbell has no answer to that question.

What it says, Mr Speaker, is that the speech you have just heard from Mr Corbell has been an absolutely and utterly hypocritical load of claptrap from beginning to end. His assertion, hand on heart, that the Australian Labor Party does not believe in entrance fees is belied by the fact that in 1994, a few months before an ACT election, his own party - the man sitting beside him today in the Assembly - introduced the capacity for a Minister, by determination, to charge entry fees. What was that for if not to impose an entry fee in due course?

Mr Corbell: Were entry fees implemented?

MR HUMPHRIES: They would have been if there had been a win by your party at the election in 1995, Mr Corbell. Let us face it.

Mr Corbell: They were not implemented.

MR HUMPHRIES: They would have been if you had been in office any longer.

Mr Corbell: Come off it! Can you see the future?

Mr Kaine: They were not implemented because your lot got chucked out of office. That is why.

MR SPEAKER: Order! The house will come to order. Mr Corbell, you will have a chance to respond, and other members will have a chance to speak after Mr Humphries.

MR HUMPHRIES: Following that legislation, a consultancy was commissioned by the Australian Labor Party. I should go back a step. In the 1994-95 budget, as I recall, provision was made for fees at Tidbinbilla.

Mr Berry: No decision on that was ever made, Gary.

MR HUMPHRIES: Yes, it was. It was made, Mr Berry, because it was in your budget.

Mr Berry: No decision was ever made.

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