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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (27 June) . . Page.. 2080 ..

MR QUINLAN: We did. Mr Speaker, I share Mr Osborne's clear admiration for Mr Humphries' flexibility in debate and earnestness of delivery, regardless of which side of the argument he is putting. However, what this amendment sets out to do is to strengthen provisions already incorporated into the bill to ensure that there is written consent of a majority of this Assembly. What we are doing in this legislation is placing inordinate powers in the hands of the executive, at least for a period of time, and quite obviously we would like the maximum protections.

I respect the amendment that Ms Tucker put forward. However, I think that this is more concise and ensures that after the consultations have been completed we will have written agreement of at least a majority of this Assembly, so that we will have, in effect, the process of agreement by the Assembly. I would certainly have to add, having read Ms Tucker's amendment, that I would expect that the government would consult and make sure it consulted all available members of the Assembly. I commend the amendment to the house.

MS TUCKER (9.28): I will be very brief, recognising that my amendment was defeated rather soundly. I will be supporting this amendment from Labor because it goes some way to addressing the concerns of the Greens about this process.

MR HUMPHRIES (Treasurer, Attorney-General and Minister for Justice and Community Safety) (9.29): Mr Speaker, I move the following amendment to Mr Quinlan's amendment:

I accept that the power being used here is quite extraordinary and should not be exercised lightly and that we should have provisions which ensure that, if the government is going to amend legislation with a Henry VIII clause, it should do so in the knowledge that when the legislation hits the Assembly later for confirmation of what the executive has done it is going to be accepted, not repudiated, so that there is not some hiatus during which the executive makes a decision which is then overturned by the Assembly. That would be most undesirable. I accept that Mr Quinlan's arrangements are reasonable and I have supported them in preference to Ms Tucker's because I think hers were overly complicated for putting those issues before the members of the Assembly.

I am proposing one further simplification to deal with having to obtain the consent of members in a relatively short space of time. We may identify a problem with the legislation that needs to be fixed up quickly lest there be, for example, the exploitation of a loophole by taxpayers that might cause an ongoing problem or the inability of the government to continue to impose some sort of tax or charge while this arrangement is unamended and, therefore, a need to act fairly quickly is in existence.

Having the words "after the consultations have been completed" in paragraph 2(b) would mean that the government would have to consult with all the members of the Assembly and complete talking to all the members of the Assembly before it could go back to those members and say, "Will you now sign a written consent to this course of action?"

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