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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 03 Hansard (Thursday, 11 March 2004) . . Page.. 1044 ..

MR CORBELL: There is no point of order. I was making the point that the argument is misleading, and it is.

MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: There is no point of order.

MR CORBELL: The issue at hand is that there are a number of items in the bill that are new expenditure for new programs. They should be fully scrutinised by an estimates committee and the government has no argument with that. But it is not a process that is going to take weeks and weeks of investigation. Indeed, I think two full sitting days will be the total sum of this committee’s public hearings.

Mr Smyth: It is not for you to say.

MR CORBELL: That’s my bet. Then there are the deliberative meetings that the committee will have to go through in preparing its report, and that will take some time. The Treasurer is proposing three weeks, which is not an unreasonable period. Of course the government will co-operate fully in making sure that officers and ministers are available. So it is not a complex process. It is not a full budget that the government is presenting to the Assembly today. It is a very specific bill that has a number of key elements to it, some of which are relatively routine, and some of which are new proposals, which should be fully scrutinised. So the Treasurer’s request is a reasonable one and I ask members to consider that in the context of deciding on the report date for the committee.

Question put:

That Mr Quinlan’s amendment be agreed to.

The Assembly voted—

Question so resolved in the negative.

Amendment negatived.

Motion agreed to.

Gene Technology (GM Crop Moratorium) Bill 2004

Mr Corbell, pursuant to notice, presented the bill and its explanatory statement.

Title read by Clerk.

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