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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 11 Hansard (6 November) . . Page.. 3709 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

"No, we are not going to put it in"; they just do not think about it. It is very clear that this is part and parcel of the way we handle legislation in the ACT. That might be one way of dealing with it. Probably, there ought also to be an instruction from each Minister to their own department that disallowable instruments are an appropriate way to go and that they should be part and parcel of legislation that is put to the Assembly.

MR KAINE (Minister for Urban Services) (12.08): It is obvious that the Government supports Mr Whitecross's amendment, as we ourselves circulated one to achieve the same objective. That is in recognition of the fact that the Assembly has made it clear that they want to be able to review disallowable instruments. I have, in the past, argued against making everything disallowable, because I think it can potentially lead to a workload on this Assembly that we do not envisage until it all starts to happen and we spend more time reviewing instruments of that kind than enacting legislation and doing the things that, essentially, we are here to do. But this amendment is in recognition of the fact that that has been the express wish of the Assembly and we have acceded to that wish in this case. I do not expect that there are going to be too many of them.

MR WHITECROSS (12.09): I welcome the Government's support, as I said before. I just want to comment on my view of the policy in relation to disallowable instruments, as Mr Kaine made a general comment on it. I make two comments. The first is that the fact that an instrument is disallowable does not necessarily mean that the Assembly is going to waste a huge amount of their time dealing with each of these things, but it provides a reminder to the Government and departments that in preparing these instruments they have to contemplate the view of the Assembly. Perhaps the existence of a clause like this will create a situation where there is less work for this Assembly because the Government and the departments will anticipate some of the views of the Assembly in constructing these things and be a little more cautious than they would be if they knew that it was not reviewable and we would have to go through the routine of moving amendments in the Assembly, ordering the Minister to have another think about it and all sorts of other things. If people just think about the will of the Assembly in the first place, perhaps these things will not arise. That is the first point I want to make.

The second point is that, whilst I accept the Minister's argument that some things which are the subject of subordinate legislation are more important than others, on this occasion we are talking about the declaration of an industry as a regulated industry. I would think that that would be a fairly major policy decision. The industries which are declared by this Bill to be regulated industries are electricity, water and sewerage - major industries which go to the lives of each and every citizen of Canberra. If other industries are to be declared regulated industries, I think it is appropriate that there be some mechanism whereby this Assembly can buy into the argument. I think that in those terms we are talking about a major policy issue, not a trivial matter.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Clauses 5 and 6, by leave, taken together, and agreed to.

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