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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 2 Hansard (2 March) . . Page.. 496 ..

MR HIRD (continuing):

chairman than the previous one. He chaired the last Estimates Committee and he certainly will have my support to chair the next Estimates Committee. However, that will be a difficult task.

It gets back to what Mr Kaine said. Time is precious in respect to this matter, and we have to deliberate and bring in the findings. My committee does not need any further workloads. I can confidently say that the mover and I will be on this select committee. The committee structure was set up to mirror the various portfolios, and we will give this matter a priority. I will be asking the respective Ministers to give us the necessary assistance to be able to achieve those dates and to bring in our findings. It is not necessary to set up another select committee at this time as we move towards consideration of the estimates when we already have that structure. I urge members to vote against the amendment.

MS TUCKER (11.42): Mr Speaker, there are a couple of comments I want to make. Mr Kaine expressed a concern that there was no reporting date in my motion and that, therefore, there might be some ulterior motive of trying to slow down the process.

MR SPEAKER: Excuse me, Ms Tucker. Are you speaking again or are you closing the debate?

MS TUCKER: No, I am speaking to the amendment.

MR SPEAKER: Right, thank you.

MS TUCKER: I would like it to be quite clear that it was not my intention to slow down the process. The reason I did not have a reporting date in this motion was because I was expecting it would come up in this discussion because - - -

Mr Berry: You mean you were Gary-ed?

MS TUCKER: No, I will come to that later. I was Gary-ed, but I will come to that later. I am actually talking about why I did not have a reporting date in here. I wanted to consult with members of this place who were going to take on the job so that I would have a sense of what an appropriate reporting date was.

Mr Kaine: Appropriate consultation.

MS TUCKER: Appropriate consultation. I do not think I am doing the work in this committee. I have asked members. Members could tell you that. This morning I went around and said, "What is the reporting date likely to be for this?". I was expecting that it would be put up in this debate. That is why it is not in the motion now.

The other thing Mr Kaine said was that he was concerned that because this was going to committee that would be used in some way to delay the voting on the facilitative Bill and that it is really important that that does not happen. If I understand you correctly, that is what you said, Mr Kaine; that this issue is in the community's interest. I have to remind members that ACTCOSS are seen to be working in the community's interest as well and they have consistently said that any regulatory regime must be decided upon before we have a vote on the future of ACTEW.

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