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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 06 Hansard (Wednesday, 23 June 2004) . . Page.. 2595 ..

Mr Smyth, out of his own mouth, said that every now and then you might get it wrong. Let me tell you, Mr Smyth, that you give yourself the best chance of getting it wrong if you cobble together different versions of legislation through the course of one day as each of them fails. When this bill came into this place it was lousy legislation. The core of it has been changed, it has been changed a couple of times today and there is a high probability that it will be passed in this place as lousy legislation.

The reason it will be passed in this place today as lousy legislation is that people who have done a lousy job on it are just too proud to back down for a day or a week to allow the thing to be done properly. We have an opposition that is permanently negative and has to beat the government no matter what. Certainly, you have demonstrated how people can work together. You have worked together today to produce a pig’s ear.

MRS DUNNE (10.27): Mr Speaker, as Mr Smyth said, the opposition will be supporting this amendment because it is neat and it deals with many of the concerns raised by the scrutiny of bills committee. I think that it was very feeble of the planning minister to stand here today and say that you cannot rely on the definition in the territory plan of a supermarket because a supermarket could be anything and then set out to explain how, if you really cross your eyes, squint a lot and cross your fingers as well, you could redefine a pharmacy to become a supermarket.

Mr Speaker, this is sophistry raised to a high art form and this is the response of a government on the run. For some reason imponderable to me they decided that, come what may, they were not going to be part of this solution and we have spent the entire day, on and off, mucking around and dealing with Mr Corbell’s every attempt to denigrate this bill. He sought leave to make a statement to have a debate on the bill. He used a motion for the suspension of standing orders to have a debate on the bill. We have had the whole lot done. He tried to stop the tabling of a petition so that he could have a debate on the bill.

The more I think about it, the reference to the retreat from Stalingrad was a very good analogy. It was bloody, it was house by house and no stone was left unturned. Not a shred of credibility is left for this government when it comes to the issue of community pharmacies. There is a saying about embracing victory and walking away from defeat. Today, this government and this minister embraced defeat rather than walk away from victory. There could have been a win/win situation for everyone, but this government dug itself into a hole and kept digging. From time to time I was sitting here saying, “Stop digging, Simon,” but he did not listen; he kept digging and got himself into this pathetic situation, which is untenable.

The common law test is the common man test. Mr Corbell may not know what is a supermarket, but I would say that the man on the inter-town bus could tell him what is a supermarket and he could also tell him what is a pharmacy. A pharmacy is where you get your medicines dispensed. You might buy a toothbrush, you might buy some paracetamol and you might get some nit treatment for your head and a whole lot of gift things, but we know what it is and we also know that you can buy some of those things at a supermarket, but you cannot get your medicines dispensed. You can also buy fire lighters, bananas, fresh fruit and vegetables, fish and chips and a hot chook. We know

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