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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 7 Hansard (6 June) . . Page.. 2009 ..

MR HARGREAVES (continuing):

competition policy until the cows come home. We can try to grandstand on our opposition to the national competition policy and it will not make the slightest bit of difference. The fact is that we have to work within it.

So I reject the view of the leader of the Democrats that because we do not like the national competition policy we can knock off this particular piece of legislation. When I talked about it in the last Assembly, I was critical of it, but recognised even then that there was not a snowflake's hope in hell of me getting anywhere with it.

Ms Dundas mentioned her concern about the construction of regulations supporting the bill, and I address my remarks to the opposition in this particular case. In my speech on this issue in the last Assembly on 28 August, I voiced concerns about the construction of regulations and being provided with a bill without the supporting regulations to see the total picture. Actually, I likened it to the home detention legislation, which Mr Moore was running at the time, as Mr Stefaniak would remember.

My fears were overcome by the actions of the government at the time by the bringing together of a round table of crossbenchers, opposition and government members to voice their concerns about the regulations and to make sure that those concerns were addressed before the regulations were fully constructed and tabled in this place. And I have to say, that was a most satisfactory process, because, instead of us having to move for disallowance of a regulation, we were actually party to its construction.

In fact, I remember very clearly that Ms Tucker's office took an active role in changing the regulations supporting the home detention legislation. I had a few concerns, and it turned out that Ms Tucker's office and mine shared those concerns, and to her office's credit they were raised at that round table. To the credit of the government of the day, it took the concerns on board and did it. Now I am suggesting that that is the process which would be most appropriate in this instance. Referring this bill to a committee, on its face, does not seem like too bad an idea. Ms Tucker always bleats that there is not enough community consultation. I have to say, when I was involved in it last time I did not get a lot of people contacting me about it, notwithstanding a fair amount of media attention.

But let us consider that the committee to which it would be referred-and it can be referred to no other committee-is the Community Services and Social Equity Committee, on which sits Ms Dundas, who has already given us a position here today; she is opposed to it. So we could actually sit down now and write that part of the report. I am the chair of it, and I am supporting the legislation-and I will go into reasons why in a tick. So, if you like, you can write my part of the report now. And Mrs Cross is not here, but it is my belief that she is okay with the legislation in its general terms because, in fact, it was a creature of the current opposition. In fact, it would be most surprising if Mrs Cross came up with something different.

So what is the chance of getting a committee report which is of any further assistance to the deliberations of this place if we already know the positions of the people on it? Absolutely zippo.

The change in my position in relation to this piece of legislation-remembering that I opposed it in this place in the last Assembly, and it is a change I have actually acknowledged-is in the perpetual tenure. The one thing that really worried me was the

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