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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 9 Hansard (7 September) . . Page.. 3062 ..
MS TUCKER (8.53): I seek leave to amend my notice of motion on the notice paper by omitting paragraph (2)(a).
Leave granted.
MS TUCKER: I move:
That this Assembly-
(1) noting the Secretary-General of Amnesty International has written to the President of the People's Republic of China expressing strong concerns about a recent increase in human rights abuses in that country, and calling on the government of China to "take steps without delay to stop arbitrary detention, torture and executions and to take radical action to reform the law enforcement and justice system to China, showing the international community a real commitment to implement meaningful human rights reforms in China".;
(2) calls on the ACT Government to in future present all plans for sister-city or friendship-city-relationships to the Assembly before taking steps towards such arrangements.
I will speak only briefly because I think the matter was covered in the previous debate. My motion calls on the government in future to present all plans for sister city or friendship city relationships to the Assembly before taking step towards such arrangements. That is to address concerns raised by Labor. They argued that this is supposed to be a whole-of-Canberra thing as much as is possible and that, as elected representatives in this place, we would like to be part of the decision and part of the development of the idea, and not just read about it in the newspaper.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Debate resumed from 29 August 2000, on motion by Mr Smyth:
That this bill be agreed to in principle.
MR CORBELL (8.55): Labor will not be supporting this bill, because the Assembly has already taken a decision on this issue. Change of use charge has been debated in this Assembly for a lengthy period. It has been widely examined not only by committees of this place but also by outside agencies. The government itself commissioned an independent study.
The Assembly was presented with the government's preferred position on this issue about three months ago. The government said, "We believe change of use charge should be 50 per cent." The minister came into this place and he said, "We need certainty. We need a concrete decision. We need no more chopping and changing on this issue. The
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