Page 1800 - Week 06 - Thursday, 19 May 1994
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In closing I would like to say again to members that this is not the minimum supply period that you might have expected to see - which, as Mr Kaine said, would have been about two months. I have allowed an additional period as a contingency against the possibility of anything going wrong with the earlier budget timetable. I hope that nothing does go wrong, because there are great advantages in meeting that early budget timetable; but I did not feel that in our first year it would be wise just to assume that everything would go swimmingly, including the Estimates Committee being able to meet their new timetable as well.
Madam Speaker, I have said also that there are new structures within the Supply Bill that reflect the new administrative arrangements orders. I know that the schedule has caused a bit of consternation, because after five years we have become a bit used to the names and numbers of various programs, and the impact of the new Department of Public Administration and of the Sport, Recreation and Racing Bureau has thrown all those numbers and names out quite considerably. I am afraid that it will be a matter of getting used to that. I trust that that will not delay members greatly in their consideration later in the year in the Appropriation Bill and Estimates Committee process. Madam Speaker, I thank members for their attention to the Bill, and I commend it to the house.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Bill agreed to in principle.
Leave granted to dispense with the detail stage.
Bill agreed to.
DOMESTIC RELATIONSHIPS BILL 1994
Debate resumed from 21 April 1994, on motion by Mr Connolly:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
MR HUMPHRIES (4.58): I am pleased to rise today to indicate the support of the Opposition for this important Bill. I think someone called it a landmark Bill. Lots of Bills are called landmark Bills, but this one probably is. I consider that what we are doing here will bring to a problem of long standing a remedy which I believe will see a great many more people brought within the scope of certain well-defined laws which will set out their remedy where they have been involved in a domestic relationship or a relationship of whatever kind and have been let down.
Persons involved in a formal marriage, of course, have had the protection of the Family Law Act for nearly 20 years. That Act has provided, not necessarily without controversy, a great deal of certainty about what their rights are in the event that that relationship breaks down - rights in respect of both themselves and the children of the relationship. Other jurisdictions have enacted legislation in respect of de facto
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