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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 9 Hansard (18 November) . . Page.. 2599 ..

MR HARGREAVES: Okay. You have to ask, Mr Speaker: Why would you not want to go through the process? I put it to you, Mr Speaker, that the reason why this happened was that this in fact is Mr Humphries' Bill. He has done a bit of a trade with Mr Osborne to get Mr Osborne off the hook here. What we are talking about here is collusion, absolute collusion. We talk about trust. "Trust me", he says. Yesterday I must admit that I was particularly grateful to discuss with Mr Humphries the content of the amendments which will manifest themselves in this Bill.

Mr Berry: I want to know why he did not come to see me.

Mr Humphries: If you have half an hour I will tell you.

MR SPEAKER: Mr Berry, I think that is probably obvious from your interjections.

MR HARGREAVES: However, there was not sufficient time to consider this thing. There was, however, enough time to enable publication in the Chronicle of 90 per cent of what Mr Humphries was proposing which now manifests itself in Mr Osborne's hopeful Bill. I read it last night. It was in the Chronicle. It was also in the Canberra Times yesterday morning. Excuse me, Mr Speaker; there has been barrow-loads of time to have this stuff brought forward. If these two colluders cannot get their act together and have to sit up there until midnight and then drop it on us today, well, that is their bad luck. There is a process to be gone through and they should do it.

Mr Speaker, too often in my short time in this Assembly have I seen Mr Osborne sitting there with a black handkerchief on his head, not participating in the debate, and saying, "Convince me. It is not up to me. It is up to you". He does not participate in the debate. He just sits there and says, "It is your problem, convince me".

Mr Osborne: What is wrong with that?

MR HARGREAVES: What is wrong with that, Mr Speaker, is that you cannot do it in the twinkle of an eye, and Mr Osborne is asking us to do that with respect to his original Bill. He asked us to do it the last time and he is asking us to do it again. Now he wants to say, "Trust me". Okay, we do not. You do not deserve it. All you have to do is go by the process and let it emerge in the normal way, instead of trying to ramrod it through.

Ms Carnell: Tomorrow.

MR HARGREAVES: It does not have to go through tomorrow either, Chief Minister. There is no urgency. (Extension of time granted) We are not talking about a piece of legislation about shoving a piece of paper under somebody's windscreen-wiper.

Mr Osborne: It is illegal.

MR HARGREAVES: Yes, it is now. We are talking about issues which are very dear to people's hearts and which cause an enormous amount of pain, an enormous amount of discussion, an enormous amount of soul-searching, and an enormous amount of mud-slinging and invective. You have to wear these sorts of things in the process of

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