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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 06 Hansard (Wednesday, 23 June 2004) . . Page.. 2591 ..

I think that a reasonable person would take a dictionary definition of what is a supermarket and I expect that, if ever there were a challenge in court, the reasonable person test would be the thinking in interpreting what we are doing here tonight. I think that the intention of this legislation is clear from the debate, but it may be that everyone who is supporting Ms Dundas’s amendment needs to stand up and say what they think a supermarket is and what they think a chemist shop is so that they can give guidance to the poor person in court who is confused.

MRS CROSS (10.12): Speaking to the amendment, I thank Ms Dundas. Her office and my own worked very hard to ensure that all the loopholes and concerns were addressed. My office had no concerns with Ms Dundas’s name being on this amendment. Ms Dundas did not have a concern as to whose name was on this amendment. We were only interested in getting it through because we wanted to achieve good outcomes for the community and to protect the pharmacy industry.

It is interesting to me that some people outside this chamber have been brought into this debate not knowing that there was an amendment to this bill to address the concerns regarding the crown lease issue. That causes me great concern because there were misunderstandings and there was an opinion on it that was wrong because people were not informed. You cannot make proper decisions unless you have all the facts. I am truly grateful to the majority of my Assembly colleagues for at least looking at this issue fairly and not being drawn into the scaremongering of the minister.

Naturally, I will be supporting Ms Dundas’s amendment to my bill because we worked on it together and it eliminates the confusion over some possible unintended consequences that my bill may have had. This matter was brought to my attention yesterday, not by the minister, who decided to raise these concerns by issuing a press release, but by Ms Dundas after advice she had received.

Mr Corbell: I wrote to you, Mrs Cross.

MRS CROSS: I am grateful that you did that, Minister, but may I say that I would have found it even more encouraging if you had come to me when the bill was tabled and said, “Let’s sit down and nut this out,” as did Ms Dundas’s office, Ms Tucker, and Mr Smyth for the opposition. That is what I would have liked you to have done, instead of trying to scare everybody here and scare people out there in the community who represent pharmacists in a variety of capacities. By working in a collegiate way, we could have saved a lot of time and a lot of anxiety for those people out there who are just trying to earn a living.

Mr Corbell made a point of saying that this bill was flawed. As was said earlier, there were 21 amendments moved to one government bill last night and we are simply debating one amendment to this bill, so it cannot be that bad. The advice suggested that the bill that I had received initially would have a substantial impact on pharmacists currently operating in the ACT, particularly those operating within shopping centres. Whilst I had originally received legal advice informing me that there would be no impact on current pharmacists, yesterday’s advice forced me to reconsider this position.

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