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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 11 Hansard (9 December) . . Page.. 3412 ..

MS CARNELL (continuing):

not comfortable about, simply because of the timeframe. That is simply not the case with this Bill. We have had it in front of us in this form for quite a long time. We have had the Clerk's letter since the middle of October. We have had any amount of time to address these issues. There has been any amount of opportunities to bring forward amendments and to have discussions with Mr Osborne.

The Government is very comfortable with the Bill in its current form, simply because we have had the time to speak to the necessary people, to address the issues that were raised, or to ensure that they are addressed from our perspective anyway and to get on with the job. We are not in the business of trying to slow down the house in any way, and we are certainly not in the business of referring things to committees simply to slow down the process. In this case we have had the Bill for sufficient time for everyone in this place to have addressed the issues that need to be addressed.

MR HARGREAVES (6.15): Mr Speaker, I support the passage of this Bill to the Administration and Procedure Committee, for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that, whilst part of it may have been discussed by that committee last year, there were four of us who were not in the last Assembly. We were not privy to those discussions or those conclusions, even though I suppose even we can read. I believe we ought to be able to consider these things.

The Chief Minister says she is not about flicking things to a committee to slow things up. I am afraid I do not agree with that either. It is a tactic, and a reasonable one to be employed in the parliamentary process. However, you flick it for two reasons when you slow it up. The first one is that you just want to get a handle on it, and an honest one. At other times you want to flick it because you do not want to talk about it at the moment.

Mr Smyth: Are you going to own up on all occasions when you are doing that? Are you going to fess up?

MR HARGREAVES: I do not say that that is an all exhaustive list. Yes, I will fess up. I will do it to you any time I get a chance to. However, I am anxious to have it passed to that committee for the honest reason that I would like to see people's minds wrapped around it in a forum where they can discuss it and bring it back. I would hope that my new colleagues in the Assembly would think likewise because the Administration and Procedure Committee, of all of the standing committees of this Assembly, is the one which is charged with housekeeping and it is the one in which, I guess, there is no chance of party political bias getting into it. We hope.

I urge members to vote for its transmission to that committee and do Mr Rugendyke, Mr Smyth, Mr Stanhope, Mr Quinlan and me a favour, because we were not here when Mr Moore was looking at it. I would like to have that revisited in the context of what we have had put before us today and so that we do not have to go back and do all the reading on it. We can get the committee to consider it in toto. I think it is most appropriate that that happen.

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