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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 9 Hansard (1 September) . . Page.. 2687 ..

Mr Berry: Since 30 June.

MS CARNELL: I agree, on 30 June, in the last sitting period, it was put on the table; eight weeks ago. That is not a very long time.

Mr Berry: The construction industry one has been around since 1988.

MS CARNELL: If Mr Berry wants to talk about the third one first I would be very happy to. In this place we regularly have discussions, particularly Ms Tucker, about the timeframes for pieces of legislation. Recently there have been some round table discussions about an amendment to the tobacco legislation which has been on the table since last year, but members are still saying they have not had time to consult, to speak to all of the people affected and so on. Actually, that was the argument coming from those opposite.

Similarly, we have many other pieces of legislation, as we saw last week, which have been on the table a lot longer than this legislation and on which members opposite - in fact, I would have to say all members of this Assembly - have said, "Sorry, we have not had time to talk to all of the interested parties". Under what circumstances would you go ahead with legislation when the interested parties, the stakeholders, had not been consulted? I can give any number of examples where Australian Business and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry have not been adequately consulted on the legislation itself.

Mr Berry: Yes, they have. They just disagreed.

MS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, could you convince Mr Berry that he should not interject, because we did not.

MR SPEAKER: I am watching it, Chief Minister.

Mr Berry: I am provoked by the inaccuracies, Mr Speaker; I apologise.

MR SPEAKER: You will have the chance to respond when you close the debate, Mr Berry. Just make a note of them or get somebody else to do it for you.

Mr Berry: Thank you; you are so kind.

MR SPEAKER: Thank you.

MS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, I will actually quote from a letter yesterday from Clinton White of Australian Business, somebody whom those opposite employed at Canberra Milk and who did a very good job; so, not somebody who is biased either way from a political perspective. Clinton White said in this letter:

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