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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 4 Hansard (24 June) . . Page.. 930 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

"The Authority would like to make it clear that, while all applications for market entry will be considered seriously and within the law, this does not mean that anyone can just decide to enter the market. The requirement still exists that approvals be sought".

Mr Speaker, I read that statement to be quite clear. The Milk Authority has received an application from National Foods, not an existing player in the marketplace. The Milk Authority is taking seriously the application of National Foods to become a player in the ACT milk industry. Assuming that they satisfy the other technical requirements which might be imposed in such circumstances, they are perfectly capable of allowing - I would even go so far as to say "are likely to allow" - National Foods entry into the ACT marketplace.

Mr Speaker, the legal advice which is referred to in that press release I have just quoted is not the same legal advice which has been tabled on the floor today by Mr Smyth. It is different advice; but it is advice which is substantially in the same terms. I think any lawyer who looks at that advice and looks at the legislation upon which it is based would have no hesitation in supporting the view which that advice puts forward. I will quote briefly from the advice which the Government Solicitor has delivered today to the ACT Government - to me specifically:

... a law which discriminates against interstate trade and is of a protectionist character will infringe section 92. This will be the case even where the law is not discriminatory on its face but is given effect in a discriminatory manner. ...

Paragraph (a) of section 17A -

that is, of the Milk Authority Act -

prohibiting import of unprocessed milk, is on its face protectionist and is almost certainly ineffective by virtue of section 69 of the Self-Government Act ... if the substance of the course proposed by the Assembly -

which is a reference to Mr Hargreaves's amendment -

is that the existing locally based processor and distributor should be allowed to continue to operate but that any interstate competition should be barred, this would seem to amount to a protectionist application of the Milk Authority's powers which would be struck down under section 69.

I repeat, "which would be struck down under section 69". The opinion reaches a similar view on a reading of the Mutual Recognition Act, which is a Commonwealth Act which applies by paramount force in the ACT and says that there are similar tendencies, although it is not quite so clear, from the Trade Practices Act. Mr Speaker, if members have not read that opinion already, I suggest that they go and do so straightaway.

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