Page 868 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 20 March 2012

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MR HANSON (Molonglo) (11.26): The Canberra Liberals will not be supporting the amendment. The amendment seeks to remove proposed new section 58B(5) from the bill. The reason for doing so, as provided to my office by Ms Bresnan, is that this clause is redundant with regard to the removal of head coverings. Firstly, it was alleged that only rarely would the situation arise in which an offence under this act would be challenged on a failure by a police officer to undertake reasonable steps to allow privacy in the removal of head coverings. However, we believe that the ability of police to identify and conduct tests is so important that any chance of vexatious defence claims on the basis of this technicality should be avoided.

Secondly, Ms Bresnan outlined concerns that this clause was novel in its approach and its passage today may allow the use of a similar clause in legislation where greater impairment of human rights has occurred. However, this clause is not novel. Whilst following different drafting styles, the intent of this clause is mimicked in other ACT legislation and in other Australian jurisdictions. For these reasons, the Canberra Liberals will not be supporting Ms Bresnan’s amendment.

Question put:

That Ms Bresnan’s amendment be agreed to.

The Assembly voted—

Ayes 4		Noes 13
Ms Bresnan	Mr Rattenbury	Mr Barr	Ms Gallagher
Ms Hunter		Dr Bourke	Mr Hanson
Ms Le Couteur		Ms Burch	Mr Hargreaves
		Mr Coe	Ms Porter
		Mr Corbell	Mr Seselja
		Mr Doszpot	Mr Smyth
		Mrs Dunne

Question so resolved in the negative.

Bill, as a whole, agreed to.

Bill agreed to.

Workers Compensation (Terrorism) Amendment Bill 2012

Debate resumed from 16 February 2012, on motion by Dr Bourke:

That this bill be agreed to in principle.

MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (11.31): The Liberal opposition will support the Workers Compensation (Terrorism) Amendment Bill 2012.

In essence, this bill is technical. It simply removes the need for an administrative diary note to pass legislation to extend the sunset clause. This sunset clause approach

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