Page 2148 - Week 07 - Thursday, 16 June 1994
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before the court and it is up to the court to make a decision. I believe that the amendment to be moved by Mr Kaine will allow the court to do just that and to give her the justice to which she is entitled. It is not our role to do that. It is difficult enough to deal with retrospective legislation anyway; but to do something which undermines somebody's right to go to court, I think, would be inappropriate. I reluctantly support the legislation in principle but with the proviso that I will support the amendment to be put by Mr Kaine.
MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (8.52), in reply: I, again, accept members' reservations about passing legislation which is retrospective in effect. Nevertheless, as I said in my introductory remarks, and as Mr Lamont said, the purpose of this legislation is not to change any law; nor is it to change the meaning of any law. It is to reinforce or to confirm the meaning of the law as it stands, and I think that is an important distinction.
In the debate on the last Bill members were concerned about the setting of a precedent by passing retrospective legislation. I would like to repeat to them, in dealing with this Lotteries (Amendment) Bill, that the precedent has already been set. It has been set by Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania, South Australia, Western Australia and Queensland, all of whom have passed this kind of legislation. It is not as if the ACT is doing something unusual or taking a one-off position here. We are doing what all of the States, but not the Northern Territory, have already done, and I think it is a sensible course of action.
Members have made much of the fact that there is a case before the courts, the Steele v. Hornsby case, and that that case has some right to be heard. The situation in New South Wales at the time that they passed their legislation was that there were many, many cases before the courts. Only the Burgin case had been heard and decided, and that was why it was exempted. The remainder of the cases, and there were well over 1,000, were simply ruled off by the passage of the New South Wales legislation. The New South Wales Government agreed that, while their retrospective legislation would specifically exclude the Burgin judgment because it ought not be ruled against in the parliament, all other claims were to be held over until the passage of that retrospective legislation. Once that legislation was passed, all of those claimants were notified that they were not to be paid. So, again, Madam Speaker, the precedent has been set by the New South Wales Parliament. I ask members to think about that in looking at the amendment that has been foreshadowed.
Madam Speaker, Mr Stevenson said that if we were to pass this legislation we would be saying that the New South Wales Supreme Court was wrong. I, for one, disagree vehemently with the ruling of the New South Wales Supreme Court. I hold the opinion that their ruling was silly. The fact is that in those years I bought God knows how many scratch lottery tickets and threw them out because I did not win. So, Madam Speaker, did thousands and thousands of other people. Even if this legislation had not come to my attention, my actions as a punter speak volumes. I do not agree with the New South Wales Supreme Court's interpretation. I know how you win on a scratch lottery ticket,
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