Page 1841 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 18 October 1989
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MR TEMPORARY DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Stevenson, I think you take the point. Would you please continue in accordance with my instructions?
MR STEVENSON: Indeed. Once again, it will allow time for the debate. We have spent a lot of time in this Assembly talking about public consultation and so on. What I am asking for is for the Act not to commence for three weeks in order to allow some public debate on that which has been so strongly put in this Assembly. It would not make a great difference in the time, so I suggest that we allow some time for public debate.
MR HUMPHRIES (4.35): I have to indicate that we will not be supporting this amendment. I am at a loss to understand, as my colleague Mr Kaine has indicated, why it is that this amendment needs to be carried to provide for public debate to occur. I am all in favour of public debate. The Bill we have just agreed to in principle provides for public debate to occur over the next seven or eight months and, as far as I am concerned, the debate which Mr Stevenson has referred to and which I hope I will be able to attend - on 10 November, was it?
Mr Stevenson: It is on 27 October.
MR HUMPHRIES: This will allow for a great deal of public debate to occur and I look forward to taking part in that and watching what occurs, but I am afraid that I cannot see how it is necessary to delay the commencement of this Bill to achieve that. Incidentally, I am also authorised to say on behalf of Mr Kaine that he has read your paper but does not accept it as an authoritative source of information on this subject.
DR KINLOCH (4.36): I commend Mr Stevenson both for his passion and for his courage when he believes strongly in an issue, and I am sure all 17 of us would want to do that about any issue we feel that way about. I also acknowledge and support Mr Stevenson's right to free speech and I do not think any unfortunate comparison should be made with books or things in the past. He has every right to it, and it cannot be easy for him to get up and do and say these things. But, as he knows, I have some difficulty with his argument on this amendment. I will also join Mr Humphries - provided the diary is free on 27 October - for that debate. I went the other night to a presentation by Professor Craig at the meeting of the Dental Association. I think all five of us on the committee will want to go to all sorts of things in this connection.
But I do have a difficulty. The vote is already nine to eight and in any case I am not going to be influenced by one debate no matter how fascinating it will be, as no doubt it will be. We have a long haul ahead of us, have we not, Mr Wood? We have a long haul of looking at all sorts of evidence over a period of time, and here I am trying to
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