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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 2 Hansard (27 February) . . Page.. 298 ..

MR HARGREAVES (continuing):

situation does not now exist because the repealing of a determination does not make the charges levied and paid in the preceding period illegal. I think that distinction should be noted by members.

The other thing that I wanted to raise about this particular determination was its reference to regulatory impact statements. Mr Speaker, I think it was late last year that the Assembly passed amendments to require the provision of regulatory impact statements where subordinate laws will have a major impact on a sector of the community.

We have not had a regulatory impact statement provided to the Assembly yet, but I wonder whether or not this determination, which cost the promoter a figure of $250,000, would constitute a major impact on a particular part of the community. It would have been interesting to have such a statement made by the minister to the chamber to see what the impacts of that determination would have been, because there was quite a lot of confusion running around the community at the time. People did not know whether they were covered for compulsory third party insurance. It would have been appropriate in this instance for such a regulatory impact statement to be provided.

Of course, sometimes these determinations are made with some speed and it is impossible for the minister to have created a regulatory impact statement in time. However, where such an impact statement should be prepared according to the law, there is also provision for the minister to exempt a particular case, but in doing so he needs to provide this Assembly with reason for his having done so.

I raise the issue about the regulatory impact statements because I know that we passed the Administration (Interstate Agreements) Act and for some considerable time members, ministers and their staff completely forgot about that legislation-did not comply with it at all-and it was only after there were some backside kicking contests that it actually got on the move. I would not like to see the law regarding regulatory impact statements forgotten also.

With that, Mr Speaker, I commend the Scrutiny Report to the Assembly.

Court Security Bill 2000

Debate resumed from 30 November 2000, on motion by Mr Humphries:

MR STANHOPE (Leader of the Opposition) (10.36): Mr Speaker, the opposition has indicated that it would prefer this bill not to be debated today-until some of the serious questions raised about the approach that the government has adopted in the bill are satisfactorily answered or otherwise dealt with. At the outset I should say that, in principle, we think it is vital to protect the judiciary and the staff from violence perpetrated by criminals or disaffected litigants. We could all agree that it is paramount that people are protected to the utmost and absolutely from violence.

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