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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 4 Hansard (30 March) . . Page.. 1103 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

through this motion we will be able to give a clear signal to the Government that we do not accept their position and that we want to work with the rest of this country to deal with these very complicated issues.

MR HUMPHRIES (Treasurer, Attorney-General and Minister for Justice and Community Safety) (11.23): Mr Speaker, I was intrigued to see Ms Tucker, with approval, quote the Prime Minister in her arguments. It would have to be the first time we have heard Ms Tucker rely on John Howard.

Ms Tucker: I thought you would be impressed.

MR HUMPHRIES: I am not sure about being impressed, but I was a bit shocked. Mr Speaker, I have a large number of things to say about this motion. I will try to be as succinct as I can. First of all, I want to address the question Ms Tucker has raised about the process being used here and about the claim that the Government has slipped things across the chamber in the hope that nobody will notice.

Ms Tucker: You did not put out a press release.

MR HUMPHRIES: I did not put out a press release, Ms Tucker, because the Government already puts out a large number of releases on a large number of subjects, and we did not regard this as being a significant issue in terms of the regulation of gambling and gaming in the ACT. Would you mind hearing me in silence, as I heard you in silence, Ms Tucker?

The Government tabled its decision on the floor of the Assembly in December, as is required under the legislation. The Government now tables a large volume of notices, disallowable instruments, and regulations all the time in this place. On virtually every sitting day I, as manager of government business, bring down a large pile of material to be tabled here. That list is being added to year in and year out by members building into legislation requirements to table disallowable instruments and other documents on the floor of the Assembly. I think it ill behoves members of the Assembly to call continually to add constantly to things that have to be tabled in the Assembly and then complain when they do not notice a document which has been tabled in the Assembly among those others that they have called for. We do not generally speak when we do not have to. We table what we are required to table under legislation.

We tabled that document because it was, among many other things, something the Government was doing at the time. We made a decision and we put it on the table. If Ms Tucker wants to call all the time, as she does, and move amendments on this floor of this place, as she does, to include more documents for tabling, she cannot complain if she does not notice the documents being tabled in this place. I reject the assertion that the Government is trying to slip things across the chamber. The fact is that tabling a document in parliament is the most public way you can deal with a document at any given time.

Ms Tucker said that the Government had made its decision before receiving the Allen report. That is untrue. I do not know where you got that notion from.

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