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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 3 Hansard (25 March) . . Page.. 831 ..

MR STANHOPE (Leader of the Opposition) (11.46): Mr Speaker, I rise very briefly to indicate that the Labor Party has considered this piece of legislation and is quite happy to support it. We accept that these are sensible finetuning amendments in the main, going to issues of public health, the control of infectious disease and provisions in relation to transmittable notifiable conditions in patients suffering from infectious diseases. We think the proposals are sensible. I might just acknowledge, Mr Speaker, that the Minister has very kindly provided me with a copy of an amended explanatory memorandum, and I thank him for his courtesy in taking the trouble to do that. The Labor Party is quite happy to support this Bill, Mr Speaker.

MR MOORE (Minister for Health and Community Care) (11.47), in reply: I thank Mr Stanhope and the Labor Party Opposition for their support for these public health measures. Of course, it is consistent with the approach taken with the Public Health Act itself when it went through the Assembly. It had widespread support after a significant amount of negotiation. Because of that, we have had an excellent outcome.

Mr Speaker, I table an amended explanatory memorandum in substitution for the explanatory memorandum that was circulated with the Bill. I will just explain that the scrutiny of Bills committee drew attention to the inadequacy of the explanatory memorandum, and rightly so. I must say that it is somewhat embarrassing to me that we had failed to provide a very clear and concise explanatory memorandum. We have now done that. The outcome of this legislation will be, as Mr Stanhope describes, modification of the Act to deal with a number of small but significant issues which I described in the introduction speech. Mr Speaker, I thank members for their support.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill agreed to in principle.

Leave granted to dispense with the detail stage.

Bill agreed to.

EVIDENCE (AMENDMENT) BILL 1999

[COGNATE BILL:

COURTS AND TRIBUNALS (AUDIO VISUAL AND AUDIO LINKING) BILL 1999]

Debate resumed from 18 February 1999, on motion by Mr Humphries:

That this Bill be agreed to in principle.

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