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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 01 Hansard (Thursday, 12 February 2004) . . Page.. 334 ..

At 5.00 pm, in accordance with standing order 34, the debate was interrupted. The motion for the adjournment of the Assembly having been put and negatived, the debate was resumed.

MS TUCKER (5.00): This is an important bill that draws the dangerous goods and hazardous substance legislation together into the one scheme. It defines materials and articles in accordance with Australian, European and United Nations codes and classification systems. It also provides for the minister to declare substances as dangerous. As I understand it, the passage of the Dangerous Substances Bill 2003 will see the ACT as the first jurisdiction in Australia to bring these dangerous substances into the same regime as part of national and international harmonisation projects.

The bill has been designed with changing security concerns in mind and with the intent of ensuring the safe and controlled sale and regulation of fireworks. The bill does not cover all aspects of dangerous substances, as transport, for example, is dealt with by and large under Commonwealth legislation. Many of the unusual provisions of this bill reflect specific security concerns on the one hand and recent experience of the fireworks industry and consumers on the other. In that context it seems clear that fireworks retailers and WorkCover have been well consulted in the development of this bill and the draft regulations.

While the bill more generally reflects a national project and also reflects consultation with explosives users, for instance, it may not have been developed in such close contact with other businesses which will be affected by aspects of this regime. Nonetheless, some aspects of this legislation have raised questions, both with the scrutiny of bills committee and more generally, particularly on strict liability issues and some of the special provisions designed to extract information from business proprietors or managers.

The fact that we are trying to turn this bill around quickly is not helpful. I am glad to hear that adjournment of the debate will occur today. Members would be aware that the crossbench, in particular, cannot give legislation reasonable analysis if there is no time between the scrutiny report and the day we expect to debate the bill, or if the weeks between tabling and debate are mostly holidays, making wider consultation fairly limited.

The government might argue that the consultation has been done but there are always aspects, in legislation of this scale, that slip through. The provision for the mental fault element of some offences to be passed on vicariously from employees to people who own or run the business is one fairly stark example. Our concerns on this aspect are shared by representatives of the Law Society, among others. Hopefully, we will address that in the detail stage.

The fact that we received 29 government amendments only yesterday, about 10 from Ms Dundas, and there are amendments from Mr Pratt and me is rather unsettling. The point is that there is some risk in trying to proceed too quickly here. It is partly for that reason that I will be moving an amendment to introduce a legislative review after about 18 months. This will enable us to ensure that the system is working as well as we might

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