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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 6 Hansard (24 May) . . Page.. 1743 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

be a national approach to these issues. It is thought that a national approach would be useful. In my speech on the motion I put a number of arguments to support why it would be useful.

Mr Rugendyke feels that he does not really know what I am asking him to note. With respect, I think members have a responsibility to know what is on the notice paper, particularly if a motion requires people to note particular documents. I also believe that I gave Mr Rugendyke the recommendations of the Senate committee when we considered sports betting and wagering; maybe I am incorrect there. But I find that frustrating. This was also the case with Mr Moore, who said he did not want to support Mr Stanhope's motion because he had not seen the reconciliation document. Well, it was available on the Internet, so that is not an excuse for not supporting something.

Mr Rugendyde: I am supporting it.

MS TUCKER: Yes, I know you are. Mr Rugendyke claims that he is supporting it. I appreciate his support on this but I am just commenting on the fact that if something is on the Notice Paper members have a responsibility to understand what is being asked.

Mr Humphries raised quite a few issues. He accused the Greens of being Luddites, which is really not addressing any of the issues and it is incredibly incorrect. He gave two wonderful other examples of what he considered was a Luddite reaction, which were nuclear power and genetic modification. If Mr Humphries is interested, I will give him a list of the scientists who are expressing grave concerns about both of those technologies. We have had a very concerning example of a recent incredibly slack approach by this Australian government involving supposedly very highly regulated trials of genetically modified seeds. Guess what? The crops were found ripped up in the local tip. You could perhaps use that as an analogy for this great enthusiasm for the new technology coming from people like Mr Humphries. "It is fine, let us do it, it is going to save the world," but, woops, later on we find out what has happened. Our stance on both nuclear power and genetic modification is now being supported by very significant scientific opinion.

Mr Humphries also was very scathing about apparently people's ability-and my ability-to understand the Internet. Mr Quinlan, I think, made that inference, too. He argued very strongly that this cannot happen. In one way I find that ironic, too, because this industry, we are told, is advancing so incredibly quickly in every other way, whether it is developing viruses or whatever. But suddenly there is great negativity in the statements from the same people who are otherwise saying how wonderfully innovative and developing this industry is. This negativity is based on the possibility of this technology being able to actually impose any kind of barrier.

Mr Humphries talked a fair bit about the failure of the attempt by the federal government to filter pornographic sites. Indeed, that has been a problem. Mr Humphries needs to understand; maybe I could explain this to him. I have read the CSIRO report on the issue of filtering. For his information the paper is entitled Access Prevention Techniques for Internet Content Filtering and it was prepared for the National Office for the Information Economy in December 1999. It is interesting to note that this was a paper and not a report-I understand that the authors themselves did not want it to be called a report-

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