Page 5528 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 9 December 2009
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The fundamental problem I have with the amendment is that it would simply delay everything and then we would also have to start the process from there. We would then have to start the process of appointing the reviewer and all of the administrative arrangements that go with that. For that reason, we will not be supporting this amendment.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (12.13): I think the discussion that is going on around this amendment is symptomatic of the debate we are going to have today and points to some of the underlying frustration that I certainly have with the way we are about to go through this bill. Mr Stanhope’s amendments came out about an hour ago. Before that, there were some amendments that came from the Liberal Party earlier this morning, and so it goes back over the last couple of days. I think this is an entirely unsatisfactory way to make laws for the ACT.
Both Mr Seselja and Mr Stanhope have just made arguments that probably each have merit. We now have to sit here and vote on this. None of us have really thought it through, yet we are going to have to, at some point in the next minute—and, frankly, I am going to have to in the next minute—decide which of these is the better model. What we should have been doing was sitting outside, or sitting in someone’s office, at a more thoughtful pace and finding a way through this. We do not want to see this legislation dragged out or not implemented in a timely manner, but equally there are probably some important arrangements to be put in place. So I find this question of the commencement an important and somewhat perplexing one in this case.
Ultimately, the Greens will not support the amendment. In the time that I have had to think about this, I think that we probably do need the act to commence, to enable the government to commence the steps to put in place the systems that are being proposed, in order to have the power to move to recruit and bring to the Assembly a suggestion as to who might be the independent reviewer. But I accept that there are probably other ways to think about this and it underlines the fact that we need to find some better ways to go about making these laws. We are making real laws for real people in the ACT and this sort of last-minute back and forth is not really a satisfactory way to do that.
MR STANHOPE (Ginninderra—Chief Minister, Minister for Transport, Minister for Territory and Municipal Services, Minister for Business and Economic Development, Minister for Land and Property Services, Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs and Minister for the Arts and Heritage) (12.15): I agree entirely with Mr Rattenbury in relation to this. It needs to be understood that we received the Liberal Party’s amendments at 10 past nine this morning. We did get an unproofed draft at close of business yesterday. We received them formally this morning at 10 past nine. This amendment is a direct response to an amendment which we received at 10 past nine this morning and which parliamentary counsel then responded to, as best he could, by 10.30 this morning, to deal with what is an obvious problem with Mr Seselja’s legislation. Mr Seselja proposes here a commencement date—
Mr Seselja: The commencement hasn’t changed.
MR STANHOPE: No, but what does change is the proposal—
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