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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 12 Hansard (18 November) . . Page.. 4272 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

a notifiable instrument, so that we are able to know when the minister may introduce a fee.

MR QUINLAN (Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development, Business and Tourism and Minister for Sport, Racing and Gaming) (8.48): I do thank members for their support. It is really an amendment that will correct an anomaly within the current act and unintentional consequences that might flow from that.

Let me repeat what Mr Smyth said earlier: this has not been in response to any action taken by the commissioner. I want to reassure members that the water abstraction charge has been evaluated by the commissioner at my request because there is, within the scope of the act, capacity for him to evaluate the social, community consequences of the price structures as well as just the raw price structure. So it has got nothing to do with water abstraction charges in itself.

What this bill does is put the process back on the right footing whereby levies or charges made or decided by government within government policy are then subject to a disallowable instrument and effectively are decided by this place and not by the commission, because they can be and are more likely to be matters of policy as opposed to matters of economics or matters of the mathematics of distributing the cost of delivery of services, which is the primary task of the commission.

I will continue to work with the commission in relation to matters that do generally fit under their purview or competence-and there are a number of matters that I have referred to the commission from time to time, and I will continue to do so. I am very, very happy with the relationship that the commission has with government-on the one hand, their strict independence in what they do; but their openness and their willingness to accept commissions from us, even though they have a fairly heavy workload. I thank members for their support.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill agreed to in principle.

Leave granted to dispense with the detail stage.

Bill agreed to.

Adjournment

Under-13 girls hockey team

MR SMYTH (Leader of the Opposition) (8.51): Mr Speaker, Canberra is a city of champions. We have a number of champion teams at the national level that are well known to the people of the ACT: the Raiders, the Brumbies, the former Cannons,

certainly the Capitals, the Lakers and the Knights. We actually have a new team to now

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