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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 6 Hansard (2 September) . . Page.. 1750 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

I think it is also important that we raise the issue of when certain Bills were attempted to be forced on by elements of this Assembly. Mrs Carnell raised the issue of a matter, a CIR Bill I think, which was on the daily program and the Assembly would not give leave for it to be ditched. It was as simple as that. This is quite a different matter from a Bill that somebody had not even brought forward. Indeed, Mr Osborne is not being prohibited from doing anything if that is the case. We have won the debate so far as preventing Mr Osborne from ramming his legislation through is concerned. That is over and done with. It is irrelevant to refer to it in the context of this debate. It is over. We have won it. He went to water. He put it off.

MR SPEAKER: Then why are you talking about it now? Relevance, please.

MR BERRY: These are issues that were raised by others in the course of the debate, Mr Speaker. The most relevant point now is the community request as of yesterday. I am disappointed that insufficient of my colleagues will support the view put by people in the community yesterday. That is clearly disappointing for me. At the end of the day, even if it had been successful, or, indeed, unsuccessful, it makes the point very clearly that the overwhelming majority of the community are strenuously opposed to the draconian legislation that has been brought forward by Mr Osborne.

Mr Speaker, I will leave it at that. It is disappointing for me personally that this request has not been put forward to Mr Osborne, but I go back to his remarks before the debate was even decided. In conclusion, Mr Osborne said, "I do not care what the Assembly says, I am not taking any notice". That is the message that needs to go out to the community. Mr Osborne said, "I will not turn back the clock", in very clear and unequivocal terms. He then proceeded to turn back the clock.

Mr Osborne: Who raised it?

MR BERRY: I am glad that you raised that. Mr Osborne said, "Who raised it?". I heard him say on the radio this morning, "Wayne Berry fired the first shot by writing a note to each member in the Assembly advising them of what he was doing". There were no sneaky actions on my part. If you want to use that as some sort of a feeble excuse to introduce draconian legislation, I think you are scraping the bottom of the barrel, old son. I would have thought you could do a little bit better than that. It is pretty clear that you cannot. It is a pretty feeble excuse and everybody recognises it. "Wayne Berry said I support abortion, so I am going to move draconian legislation". What a joke. Mr Osborne, please. You can do better than that.

Mr Speaker, there we have it. This is a reasonable request from the community. I am disappointed that the majority of members of this Assembly are now going to oppose it. I know that the community will be disappointed with the Assembly's decision as well.

Question resolved in the negative.

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