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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 7 Hansard (25 June) . . Page.. 2483 ..
MR SMYTH (continuing):
that somebody, who might be aggrieved with the territory not complying with something that Mr Corbell asserts they have already complied with, will take legal action. In my view, it is fair and reasonable that Assembly members are given access to this information and that we should therefore move to suspend standing orders.
Question put:
That Mrs Dunne's motion be agreed to.
The Assembly voted-
Ayes 8 Noes 7 Mrs Burke Mr Smyth Mr Berry Mr Quinlan Mrs Cross Mr Stefaniak Mr Corbell Mr Stanhope Ms Dundas Ms Tucker Ms Gallagher Mrs Dunne Mr Hargreaves Mr Pratt Ms MacDonald
Question so resolved in the negative, in accordance with standing order 272.
Vietnamese community in the Philippines
Debate resumed.
MS MacDONALD
(3.31): In closing, I want to talk about the amendment that has been put up by the opposition. The opposition has maintained that it is a mere change of the word "grant"to "process", but this is no mere change. It will water-down the intent of the motion. The effect of the amendment would be that the stateless Vietnamese in the Philippines would need to reapply for visas. This would necessitate them going through the whole visa application process again, which they have already attempted. Their applications are already in place.I had a conversation with a number of people from the Vietnamese community when they were here before. They were not happy with the idea of the amendment. They were not happy with the proposed change. They were fearful as to what going through the application process again would mean. They believe the process is not free from corruption. They believe that people living in the Vietnamese community in the Philippines would need to go through the process again.
These people believe the applications would have to be made within the Philippine community and that that process is open to bribery and corruption. Indeed, there was a suggestion-not just of financial corruption in order to try to get through the application process-of the "in kind"corruption, whereby women must sell themselves in order to get favourable treatment.
I therefore reject the proposed amendment. I note that Ms Tucker spoke fairly well on the reasons why the amendment should be rejected. Mr Smyth says that he and the Liberal Party support the motion, save for that small amendment.
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