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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 4 Hansard (29 March) . . Page.. 1145 ..

Motion (by Mr Berry ) agreed to, with the concurrence of an absolute majority:

That so much of the standing and temporary orders be suspended as would prevent consideration of Assembly business having precedence of Executive business until the Assembly has concluded its consideration of this item of business this day.

MR SMYTH (Minister for Urban Services, Minister for Business, Tourism and the Arts and Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (11.36): Mr Speaker, when it was clear that Mr Hargreaves was going to remove clause 9 from the regulations it became apparent that they had not considered clause 12 based on what was in the motion. Mr Berry has now amended that. Of course, both clauses either have to remain or both clauses should go, and it would appear that the will of the Assembly is that both clauses will go.

Mr Berry said that this is about raising revenue; that that is the objective of the government. It certainly is not. It is curious that the process of continuous registration and the reforms that we get to today actually started under Labor. It probably started under a cabinet of which Mr Berry may well have been a member because in 1994 the principles that were agreed upon to allow the national road rules to be developed actually included continuous registration.

So for some six or seven years now bureaucrats around the nation have been working on this process with the understanding that they had the agreement of all jurisdictions. So let us put this in the context of where it started. It did start many years ago. Indeed, this Assembly, in December 1999, confirmed those principles when it passed the national road rules into ACT legislation. These were enacted in March last year. So we have all actually said, "Go ahead and do this."

It is quite clear that both these clauses will come out of the regulations, and that will cause some inconvenience to the public servants who have been putting the package together. I apologise to the public servants. In 1994, 1999 and 2000 you were told to go ahead and do it, but now the Assembly has changed its mind.

Mr Speaker, we will be the only state or territory not to have continuous registration. It is actually one of the agreed principles that we believe will assist in the reduction of vehicle rebirthing so that we keep track of where all vehicles are at all times. That is one of the purposes of the continuous registration-to make sure that the ACT does not become the centre of rebirthing in the nation. What this motion does today may make that the case. Already the states are pointing the finger at us, and saying, "You are letting the side down because you have this gap in your legislation and you are being inconsistent with the rest of us." That gap will continue now at the will of the Assembly. If the states continue to point the finger and if it is proven that without having continuous registration we do become a place where rebirthing of vehicles occurs, then the Assembly needs to be aware of that.

Mr Hargreaves made some comment to the effect that I said that we should not have to take into account people who suffer financial difficulty. I checked with Mr Rugendyke because I had no memory of saying that. Mr Rugendyke confirms that I did not say those words.

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