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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 13 Hansard (7 December) . . Page.. 3822 ..

MR KAINE (continuing):

the Bill, so I am prepared to go along with the Government's Bill and its amendments at this stage and review the legislation from time to time to see whether it is working right.

MR TUCKER (12.28): I will briefly respond to Mr Humphries' concerns. I think I did make it clear in my speech that in principle we could not see a reason not to have the Ambulance Service in the legislation. But, like Mr Kaine, we have concerns about the fact that the levy has been integrated into the Emergency Management Bill and also about the issues of competition policy. I raised concerns about the fact that the Government, by regulation later, will deal with public benefit tests and so on. We are concerned that there should be full scrutiny of this particular aspect. The Government has chosen to take this line. The Greens are expressing a note of caution, saying that we would like the opportunity to look at the implications of this first. The committee did not address it in any great detail, so there is a place for this scrutiny to occur. That is why at this point we think it is better to remove this subclause and look at these important aspects.

The Government is welcome to make some amendments themselves, or we can look at this again once those issues have been addressed. We would be much more willing then to include the ambulance. It is sensible on one level to do that, but unfortunately the Government have chosen to complicate the matter in the way that it has.

MR HUMPHRIES (Treasurer, Attorney-General and Minister for Justice and Community Safety) (12.29): I want to respond briefly to the points made by Ms Tucker. She suggested that the Greens need more time to consider the idea of putting the - - -

Ms Tucker: No, we want to see your regulations. You said you were going to give us regulations. We would like to see them.

MR HUMPHRIES: With great respect, I have not been asked for the regulations before now. The legislation has been on the table now, in one form or another, for two years. I am asking the Assembly, after two years, to consider passing legislation which virtually every other State has now passed and which I would regard as quite urgent and important. To come back out of the blue, at the eleventh hour and fifty-ninth minute, and say, "I want to see your regulations before we will include the Ambulance Service in the Emergency Management Act" is unfair.

We have had the Ambulance Service in the Bill since day one, back in December 1997, in the last Assembly, when we put this legislation on the table in the first place. If Ms Tucker has further questions about it or does not understand what we are trying to do or wants to see the regulations, she should have come and asked me or someone in my department for that information.

Ms Tucker: So you have the regulations? You can show us?

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