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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 1 Hansard (16 February) . . Page.. 211 ..

Government agree with the recommendations of the committee in relation to the application and annual fees? Mr Speaker, that is all the Government has to deal with. It is not a difficult situation.

Now, I want to get to the real reasons. The Government opposes this legislation principally because it is legislation that I introduced. It is no more than that. This is just a silly political move by the Attorney - General to try to delay, again, a sensible piece of legislation which properly regulates employment agents in the ACT and provides a safety net for people who might be vulnerable when an employment agent is thinking about exploiting a young job seeker. Mr Speaker, that is what this legislation sets out to do.

This is not something that employment agents have complained about, Mr Speaker. In fact, on a scale of one to 10 in terms of satisfaction, I would rate it at probably about 91/2 because I received one complaint over a year ago, and I think I satisfied the complaint of that person.

Mr Humphries would argue that it is unnecessary. Well, I would say that this is necessary. It is considered necessary in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. It is regulated right around the ACT. For my part, if it prevents the exploitation of one job seeker, then I think it is necessary. We have an obligation as an Assembly to provide safety nets to ensure that these sorts of things do not occur. I seek to do in this place what has been done in legislatures in other parts and places in the country. This is not new legislation.

I have said on a number of occasions that the Government relies on practice in New South Wales when it is a bit of bad medicine for the people of the ACT. They will say, "Well, this happens in New South Wales; we should do it here", if they want to increase taxes and so on and so forth. This is good medicine and it is good for ACT residents. It does happen in New South Wales and I can see no reason why it should not occur here. If there is any weight in the argument that this is bad for territory citizens, I would like to hear it. It is not bad for them.

At 5.00 pm the debate was interrupted in accordance with standing order 34. The motion for the adjournment of the Assembly having been put and negatived, the debate was resumed.

MR BERRY: Mr Speaker, I think the Government's move to try to delay debate on this Bill is merely another reflection of their opposition to the legislation generally rather than a genuine need for time to consider the matter further. There is no need to consider this matter further.

I will put the lie to the argument that we always give the Government three months. The Appropriation Bill 1999-2000 did not get three months. The report on the Emergency Management Bill came back on 16 November and we considered it on 7 December. The Long Service Leave Bill was reported on on 7 December and was decided on 8 December. The report on the Motor Traffic (Amendment) Bill (No. 4) - I think that was Mr Rugendyke's Bill - came back on 25 November and was decided on

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