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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 14 Hansard (10 December) . . Page.. 4855 ..

Ms McRae: It is stuck.

MR MOORE: No, it is because it is my legislation, Ms McRae. I can have as much time as I like on any of these issues. I think your mind has skipped you, because it is normally a government member that has the control of legislation. But, in this case, I could be here until midnight, easily. Having watched Mr Humphries over many years, it is a great delight to be in this position, I have to tell you. Because people reading Hansard might not understand, Mr Humphries is actually losing his voice and is having a great deal of difficulty getting any words out at all. I think I have probably taken advantage of him enough up to now.

I will say, though, that there are a couple of issues here. The issue that Mr Humphries made secondly is that the group of people that this involves is getting smaller and smaller, and that is correct. It happens by attrition, because the leases that might have been affected are running out. The first point that he made was about retrospectivity. He did not apply the same standards of retrospectivity to residential tenancies. I think we ought to keep that in mind. With residential tenancies we have said, "Oh, yes, we have the power to say that where there is a tenancy in place we can interfere". It is only the property interests that have managed to persuade the Government, as they did when I put forward similar amendments on a previous occasion, that this is retrospective legislation. It is not retrospective legislation at all. There is a retrospective element, in the sense that it interferes with a contract that has been entered into in the past. Yes, there is that element to it. But it is not retrospectivity in the way that we normally consider retrospectivity as applying to legislation. When legislation comes into place, will this affect somebody's actions in the past or make their actions of the past illegal? No, it will not. It says that leases that were entered into at that time are fine up to this day but from this day onwards the legislation as passed by this Assembly will apply. That is the sense in which it is not retrospective and that is the sense in which we normally deal with retrospectivity in law. It is just the same as if somebody has entered into a contract where there is taxation to be paid. We pass a budget Bill and we say, "As of this day, as of this time, the legislation prevails".

I know Mr Humphries is having difficulty with that at the moment. I am sure that he will take me aside in a little while. I know that this is highly likely to fail, even though I support Ms Horodny's attempt. I am sure that we will have a discussion about whether this is retrospective. I will just get an indication from you, Mr Humphries. Do you accept the argument I am putting that this is not retrospective? No. There is an indication that he does not accept that argument. I must say that I genuinely believe that this is not bringing about retrospectivity in the sense that we apply retrospectivity to legislation. It would mean that, as of today, the law applies and contracts that are in place as of today can be reviewed under today's legislation.

I am happy to support the amendment that Ms Horodny has moved today, because I think it would be an opportunity for a couple more small businesses to survive. That is what this legislation is about. The part that I find most upsetting is that lip-service is given again and again by the Chief Minister, in particular, and the Government to supporting small business, saying that what we are about is ensuring that there are going to be more jobs. That is what this amendment is about, and that was what clause 7 was about.

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