Page 3056 - Week 07 - Thursday, 1 July 2010

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We certainly come to this with good faith because we believe very strongly in the importance of this industry to the territory. We also acknowledge the legitimate concerns that are raised when things go wrong. That is the balance that we seek to achieve. We believe that the Assembly, looking at this in a tripartisan way, would be a very important way of doing that. Hopefully it would look at how, if regulations need to be strengthened, they could be strengthened. If it is about enforcement, let us look at enforcement. If it is about other issues in industry and the way that industry communicates, let us look at those things. These are all of the issues that need to be considered. Fundamentally, our approach is that we do not generally trust the government to examine themselves, to investigate themselves, and we do not tend to take their word for it. Long, bitter experience has taught us not to accept the word of the government.

For that reason we will not be supporting the Greens’ amendment, though we hope that, despite the fact that the amendment will get up and the original motion will not, there will be a considered way forward at the end of that and the Assembly can make rational and reasonable decisions about how we maintain that balance, how we ensure that buyers and owners are legitimately protected and how we can make sure that our industry continues to thrive.

It is important for the industry because those few rogue operators who get exposed from time to time give a bad name to the vast majority of people in the industry who do the right thing, who work hard, who comply with the law and who simply seek to make a living in that industry. The vast bulk of very good operators would want to see those others out of the industry. They would want to ensure that we do not see those kinds of things which reflect, unfortunately, poorly on the rest of the industry. I reiterate that we will not be supporting the amendment. I commend the original motion to the Assembly.

Question put:

That Ms Le Couteur’s amendment be agreed to.

The Assembly voted—

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Mr Hargreaves): The question now is that the motion, as amended, be agreed to.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

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