Page 26 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 9 February 2016
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We cannot support this legislation as tabled because of those concerns. There are improvements that can be made. Clearly the government agrees with that, because it has amended its own legislation, as I said, at the midnight hour.
Let us not be in a rush. I do not see what the rush is. Let us get it right. Let us make sure that the Assembly—which has a committee to look at these sorts of things, which can do so in a methodical way, which can listen to some of those concerns first hand—through the JACS committee, can examine it. We have two members of the Liberal Party and two members of the Labor Party. We know that. That committee can report back to the Assembly and we can make a considered decision.
The failure to do so would mean that the opposition would be unable to support this legislation. We are not resistant to change; we are not resistant to improvement. It is just clear from what we have heard from those affected that the government has got it wrong. Let us get it right. Pursuant to standing order 174, I move:
That the Protection of Rights (Services) Legislation Amendment Bill 2015 be referred to the Standing Committee on Justice and Community Safety for inquiry and report.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Deputy Chief Minister, Attorney-General, Minister for Capital Metro, Minister for Health, Minister for Police and Emergency Services and Minister for the Environment and Climate Change) (11.21): On the motion, Madam Deputy Speaker, the government will not support this proposed referral today. If the opposition were genuine about the need for such a referral, I would have expected normal courtesies to have been extended and for the Leader of the Opposition to have approached me as the responsible minister to put the case to me that he was going to move such a referral on the floor this morning.
This is the first time the government has heard of this proposition. It speaks to the fact that the opposition are simply unprepared to debate the substance of this bill. They have had quite a reasonable period of time over the past two to three months to get their head around the detail and the specifics of the proposals that are before the Assembly today, but instead we have this last-minute repechage to refer matters to the committee for some form of inquiry for a period of time that would appear to be uncertain. The fact is that many of the matters—indeed, most of the matters—that Mr Hanson refers to for his justification for referral have already been addressed by the government. They have already been addressed by the government.
Mr Smyth: What? The resignation of the three guardians?
MR CORBELL: That is just factually false, Mr Smyth; you might want to go and check that.
Mr Hanson cites concerns about nomenclature, about the titles of commissioners. Those matters have been addressed in the bill that is before this place. The commissioners have titles and they have allocation for specific portfolio areas across the broad range of community health service and other service delivery that is
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