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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 1 Hansard (15 February) . . Page.. 42 ..

MS CARNELL (continuing):

Mr Speaker, we will not be changing our position in this instance, as much as I do not believe the laws in the Northern Territory are ones that would have passed this Assembly. Democracy is such that the people of the Northern Territory must be allowed to elect their Government, and I believe their Government should be able to legislate on their behalf, with all of the up and down sides of appropriate democracy. In other words, if you do things that your community does not like, you get thrown out on your ear.

MS TUCKER: I have a supplementary question. I can see that the Chief Minister used the time that she had to look up quotes from speeches that I have made, but I take the answer to be no. I guess my supplementary question will have to be this: Does not the Chief Minister consider that this instance is one that is compelling and urgent, which in the submission from the ACT Government was stated to be a reason or a basis for development of criteria to guide the Federal Government on where such powers may indeed have to be instigated? My understanding of the ACT Government's position was that they were arguing for a process to develop some kind of criterion to look at this. I would like to know from the Chief Minister what sort of incident would she think was extreme, urgent and compelling if the death of a child who was incarcerated for a period of time for stealing textas is not?

Mr Stanhope: A good question.

MS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, I am interested that Mr Stanhope thinks that is a good question. I wonder what his position would be on this.

Mr Humphries: We will not find out, I suspect.

MS CARNELL: I suspect we might not find out, due to a lack of guts, I suspect.

Mr Stanhope: Well, tell me whether the death of a child is not a compelling reason to legislate.

MS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, there is no doubt that the death of a child is a compelling issue. So is the issue of euthanasia. So is the issue of people injecting out on the streets and the issue of supervised injecting places. They are all life and death issues. They are all compelling, but I have to say I do not see the difference between this particular circumstance in the Northern Territory and the issue of euthanasia, or the issue of drug dependent people dying out on the streets. These are not the sorts of issues that - - -

Mr Stanhope: They are not compelling?

MS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, of course they are compelling, and I am interested that Mr Stanhope believes they are not compelling. I would be interested - - -

Mr Stanhope: Well, you do not. It is your submission. What does your submission mean?

MR SPEAKER: Order! Mr Stanhope, you have asked your question.

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