Page 3128 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 17 October 2006
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
amendment 3. It asks the minister to come back and report annually to the Legislative Assembly within three sitting days of the end of a financial year. It will force the minister to come back to the Assembly to tell the number of compliance tests carried out, the number of contraventions of section 14 that were detected, what action was taken and the effectiveness of the compliance test.
The minister herself has admitted that she had concerns when she first heard about this bill from the previous minister. I think we all have some concerns about how it will affect young people, and therefore it is appropriate that the government come back to the Assembly and say what effect it has had.
The fourth amendment is for a sunset clause, as we need to reassess this after two years of its enactment. The purpose of that is to have the debate again in the Assembly, to make sure that what we have passed is good law and does not affect the young people involved adversely. I do not think it is too onerous a requirement, when we are dealing with the lives of young people in the ACT, to reassess what we have done. I note the government will not be supporting amendments 2, 3 and 4, which is a shame because we have all expressed concern. Here is a way of addressing that concern, but the government simply says no.
MR HARGREAVES (Brindabella—Minister for the Territory and Municipal Services, Minister for Housing and Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (11.46): As the minister has indicated, the government does not support these three amendments. The opposition seek to have a specific annual report on this issue. We do not see that as necessary, as the annual report of the department will contain reference to the efficacy of this process. Also, clause 42H of the bill addresses the issues that Mr Smyth raises, so I do not think it is necessary to support his second amendment.
With respect to the sunset clause, the worry that we have about that is that the whole thing would just disappear after two years. It should not disappear after two years. This is sensible legislation. The government, however, will flag that we are happy to review the matter after a period of three years, but we cannot support these three amendments.
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (11.47): I will not support that amendment, but I am very pleased to hear Mr Hargreaves say that the government is planning to review the legislation after three years or so. I would hope that when the legislation is reviewed we get a full set of data about the number of times a young person was used in this way, the number of prosecutions and so on. But the real problem is that we still will not know how many young people were prevented from getting access to cigarettes. In that sense, this is an extremely indirect way of tackling the problem. I support the three-year review, but I will not support that particular amendment.
Amendments negatived.
Clause 4, as amended, agreed to.
Remainder of bill, by leave, taken as a whole.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (11.48): I move amendment No 5 circulated in my name [see schedule 1 at page 3182].
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .