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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 11 Hansard (10 December) . . Page.. 3442 ..

MR KAINE (continuing):

Mr Speaker, this is an outrageous proposition to put forward to a legislature. We would have to be a bunch of morons even to consider it. This has been put forward by a Minister for health. You have to be joking! I have to ask the members of the Government sitting on either side of this Minister: Are you supporting this legislation?

Mr Smyth: Yes, I will be.

MR KAINE: You are mad.

Mr Smyth: No, I am not.

MR KAINE: If you do not mind my saying so, you are mad. I do not think I need to say much more. I think my position is now quite clear. It will not change, no matter how the Minister tries to whitewash the issue in a motion that he intends to put to this place this afternoon to anticipate the debate on the Bill itself, to give it some additional credibility. No matter what he says, it will not alter the basic fact that this is a Bill that purports somehow to make legal something that is illegal, and it carries a title of safe when, in fact, it is not. It can only appeal to the ill, to the gullible. I would suggest that nobody in this place should be fooled by this, nobody should give it 10 seconds' worth of consideration.

We should vote on the Bill now and vote it out here and now before it goes any further, before it gets any more credibility in this community. Mr Speaker, I must say that I am astonished, absolutely astonished, that a Minister in the Executive of this place should put this kind of Bill on the table and expect it to be taken seriously. It is quite clear: I will not support it under any circumstances.

Mr Moore: No, you will let our children die, Trevor Kaine.

MR KAINE: You look after your kids and I will look after mine, Mr Moore.

Debate (on motion by Mr Osborne) adjourned.

MR OSBORNE (11.37): I move:

That the resolution of the Assembly of 28 April 1998, as amended on 25 June 1998, appointing a Select Committee on the Report of the Review of Governance be amended by omitting from paragraph (3) "first sitting day of 1999" and substituting "first sitting day of March 1999".

With the formation of the superannuation committee, the other committee that I am involved in has had to take a back seat, Mr Speaker. This is just a motion to extend the reporting date while we sort out the issue over ACTEW.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

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