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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 11 Hansard (29 November) . . Page.. 3460 ..

MR HARGREAVES (continuing):

Queensland one. Curiously, when I attended the meeting of chairs and deputy chairs of scrutiny committees it was put to me by a Queensland delegate that more often than not it is the exemption clauses which are invoked rather than the ones when it has to be done. It is not intended to put an impact statement behind every single piece of subordinate legislation. Nobody wants to know about the impact if you are going to put up a government charge by 2 per cent. For example, if a government charge were to go up with the CPI you would not bother to do an RIS for it. On the other hand, if you put up a charge to, say, 100 per cent over and above the CPI, you might like to see that.

I believe that variations of the Territory Plan are regulations. If a variation to the Territory Plan had to be put forward in order, say, to put a road around a significant ridge, then perhaps one of these regulatory impact statements showing the economic and environmental impact of that proposal, with its alternatives, would be quite useful to people long before it actually got to this stage. I suspect there are quite a few others like that.

I would like to reiterate my appreciation of the government for this. I am sure that in the spirit of a bipartisan approach to transparency and accountability, for which this government is well renowned, that we will be able to achieve something.

I want to pay particular credit to Mr Connolly for his introduction of the subordinate laws legislation in the first place, and also to Mr Moore. This legislation is another piece in a suite of transparency initiatives. I have to say, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, that state colleagues at these meetings of chairs and deputy chairs have been supportive of regulatory impact statements. You will remember that when we went to the conference in Sydney it was quite a significant initiative. The OECD representatives actually encouraged jurisdictions within a country to go down this track. Whilst there are a number of jurisdictions doing it, there are a number dragging the chain a bit, and I would like to be on the winning side.

I also feel, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, that when this particular piece of legislation is added to the Administration (Interstate Agreements) Act as part of that suite, you will find that the ACT is a leading jurisdiction around the country for this sort of approach. So I congratulate Mr Connolly and Mr Moore for their foresight, and I appreciate very much the support from the Greens, the government and, I hope, from the crossbenches as well.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill agreed to in principle.

Debate (on motion by Mr Moore ) adjourned to the next sitting.

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