Page 1022 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 17 March 2010
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Michael Moore used to have a vehicle for this and we used to accuse him of leading the legislation race. It was a headlong rush to get his legislation into the process. It did not matter whether it made any sense or not, and most times it did not make any sense. And these guys are doing it again. They are just saying, “Let’s see whether we can get it in before the government does.” What if it is bad law? And the Greens keep telling us the best way to figure out whether it is bad law or not is to ask the people that are affected by it. And that is what we are doing.
We also want to have expert advice on the sort of equipment we would have to use at the roadside. We would also like to know about the costs so that we can put the costs in front of the members in this chamber. We cannot do that today because the information has not been received just yet.
I think this is a reasonable approach to take, not that we do not want to debate the bill, Mr Hanson’s bill. What we want to do is put the two together in a cognate debate. If you like, we can separate them. This is an offer, an offer too good to refuse. It is an offer too good to refuse. If you are too afraid to have your bill matched up against the other one, if it is a matter of fear that I see in your eyes, that is the way it goes. I would ask members to support the government and the Greens’ position with respect to this suspension of standing orders.
MR SESELJA (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (4.05): This is about two things. We have got the government wanting to take the credit for something that they have opposed for years. Something that they actually voted against, they want to now take credit for. It is so transparent and it is so typical of a government that is tired and out of ideas; they do not have any ideas of their own. So what they are going to do is again copy what is being put forward by the opposition.
For the Greens, this is about their not being comfortable with the concept of RDT; this is about their opposing the policy and looking for any opportunity to stall this. Why would you not want to have your debate? Why would you not want to put your views on the table? Why would you not want to put your views on the table about what you think about RDT today? You had the opportunity. It is listed on the daily program. You could have come and told us what you think about RDT. Do you support it or not? Instead, you would not even allow a debate to take place, not even allow an in-principle debate to take place, where we could hear from you what your view is on RDT.
Our view is clear. We believe it is an essential part of the tools that we need to give police to deal with road safety in the ACT. We have been consistent on this. We believe that people driving under the influence of drugs should not be able to do so and, wherever we can, the police should be empowered to try to stop that. Just as we believe that people driving under the influence of alcohol, people who have had too much alcohol to drink, should not be on our roads, people under the influence of illicit drugs also should not be driving on our roads.
The Greens do not even want to debate this issue. The Greens—
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