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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 13 Hansard (7 December) . . Page.. 3862 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

of levies of this kind. As I understand it, it also picks up the legislation that this Bill repeals, which also has references in it to the ambulance levy. We are not changing anything. We are doing what has been the case for some time, simply picking it up and running it forward into this new legislation.

We have heard the argument that we should not have reference to the ambulance levy in the new Emergency Management Act because it is somehow inappropriate. There are at least half a dozen other pieces of legislation my officers have been able to identify in the last day or so which have similar levies contained within them, or charges of the same kind as that contained in this Bill. They are the Casino Control Act 1988, section 16; the Gaming Machine Act 1987, section 58; the Interactive Gambling Act 1998, section 84, only recently passed by this Assembly; the Liquor Act 1975; the Legal Practitioners Act 1970, section 132; the Stock Act 1991; the Bookmakers Act 1985; and possibly the Gas Supply Act, only recently passed by the Assembly, in 1998. In all those pieces of legislation there are provisions for levies of the same kind.

If we are now espousing a principle that substantive legislation affecting a particular area should not include any levies that are associated with that particular area of regulation, I have two questions. First of all, where should the levy go? Secondly, if the levy should be somewhere else, such as in separate free-standing legislation - I presume we would have an Emergency Management (Ambulance Levy) Act - - -

Mr Hargreaves: It is already there.

MR HUMPHRIES: No. At the moment it is in the present Bill. We want to keep it in this Bill.

Mr Hargreaves: It is in another Act.

MR HUMPHRIES: It is in another Act. We are proposing to carry it over into what will be the Emergency Management Act. If we want to have a separate Act or have this rolled into some other piece of legislation - I do not know which legislation; no-one has told me yet - then why are we now espousing this new policy? We have not done it for other pieces of legislation, some of which have been passed by the Assembly only in the last 12 or 18 months.

I do not understand this principle that has suddenly been raised. Why can the levy not be in the Emergency Management Act? It is a levy which funds the Ambulance Service, which now, pursuant to the decision of the Assembly, is part of the Emergency Management Bill. Why should it not be part of the one document? Perhaps Mr Hargreaves or someone else can explain where these provisions should be if they are not here and why this principle has not been applied in other legislation the Assembly has passed.

MR HARGREAVES (4.08): I rise again to explain some of the issues. The committee said, as the Minister read out, that it was of the view that there was no logic in including the information and that the Minister had not given any logic for it. Furthermore, in his response to this report, the Ministers talked about recommendation 6, which is that the levy not be included. His response said, "See recommendation 5". Recommendation 5 is

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