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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 11 Hansard (30 November) . . Page.. 3514 ..
MR SPEAKER: That is getting pretty close to asking for an opinion, Mr Minister.
Mr Stanhope: It is a good point, though.
MR SPEAKER: That may be so. Nevertheless, it is not necessarily for the minister to comment on it; that is what I am saying.
MR STEFANIAK: That is probably right, Mr Speaker; but I am certainly happy to take note of the details and follow up for Mr Rugendyke after question time.
Mr Humphries: I ask that all further questions be placed on the notice paper.
MR STEFANIAK: Yesterday, I took on notice part of a question from Mr Rugendyke, who indicated that on Monday morning on ABC radio it was said that drug dealers were going into needle distribution centres and collecting 100 needles at a time and asked whether that had been reported to the police. The answer to that question is that no formal report of that activity has been made to the police. The police advise that, provided needle exchange staff have not been coerced, threatened or in any way forced to provide needles to particular individuals, police would have no grounds to intervene in that practice. The police maintain a policy of minimising police presence in and around the needle exchange centres. However, police do respond to particular incidents when requested to do so and will continue to do so.
MR HUMPHRIES (Chief Minister, Minister for Community Affairs, Attorney-General and Treasurer) (3.12): For the information of members, I present the following paper:
Administration and Procedure-Standing Committee-Report-The operation of the Legislative Assembly (Broadcasting of Proceedings) Act 1999 (presented 28 June 2000)-Government response, dated November 2000.
I move:
That the Assembly takes note of the paper.
I would like to thank the Administration and Procedure Committee for its work in preparing the report on the operation of the Legislative Assembly (Broadcasting of Proceedings) Act 1997. The report is a timely one. It is appropriate that developments in technology now be used to provide the ACT community with greater access to the proceedings of its Assembly.
The ACT is a clever community. It is a territory well equipped to take its parliament to the people. It has the highest rate of home computer and Internet usage in Australia. The TransACT initiative, for example, will place Canberra at the forefront of communications technology, with a world first roll-out of a fibre to curb broadband
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