Page 1781 - Week 06 - Thursday, 14 May 2015
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report; we are not anywhere near that stage yet—may say something entirely different. Therefore the certainty goes out of it. To have certainty, this bill should go to the committee. To have good process, this bill should go to the committee. To have respect for the committee system of the ACT Assembly, this bill should go to the committee. If there are pieces that the government feels are vitally important to be passed before the end of the financial year, I am sure the committee would take that into consideration.
MS BURCH (Brindabella—Minister for Education and Training, Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Minister for Disability, Minister for Racing and Gaming and Minister for the Arts) (11.05): I will be short on this. We do not support this going through to the committee. It is not in any way a reflection on the committee structure. We have admiration for the committee structure here in this Assembly. The committees serve this Assembly well.
Mr Smyth has said that the clubs are seeking certainty. The tabling and passage of this amendment bill will provide certainty to the clubs. The trading scheme is something the clubs have been talking to me about, I think, the entire time I have had this portfolio and I am very pleased that I am able to table this today. It is a complex piece of work. It is timely. It stands on its own. It has been tabled today and this should allow us to bring it back, debate it and hopefully pass it next sitting.
MR HANSON (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (11.06): I rise to make a couple of quick points. I certainly support what Mr Smyth has said. We have seen some chaos in this area of late. What we want to do is make sure we do not have a repetition of what has happened. The clubs have been the ones most disadvantaged by this.
I understand, having spoken with various clubs and ClubsACT, that they do want to see this matter dealt with. This would need to be done expeditiously by the committee, and the committee can do that by providing an interim report. But it would be a nonsense, and I think would create some significant problems potentially in the long term, if we were to have one process which is to have a holistic look at the clubs and then have another process which is to look at this legislation in isolation.
I think it would be problematic in the longer term. There may not be any delay, because committees can turn matters around very quickly. Mr Smyth has proven, as the chair of the public accounts committee, that on reviews of things like the Mr Fluffy legislation this can be done very quickly. I think that slowed that legislation by two days or something and that was a much shorter time frame. So I think it would be sensible. I think it would be using the committee process for what it is meant to do.
We have no view. We have not seen the legislation. This does not suggest any opposition by the Liberal Party. What this is trying to do, in actual fact, is seek a bipartisan view by taking it to the committee to try and make it come out of the committee with broad support, which I think would be good, because this was the failure that led to some of the problems that we saw earlier this year when things were done sort of in back rooms by the minister.
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