Page 4436 - Week 14 - Thursday, 1 December 1994
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Mr Moore: I take a point of order, Madam Speaker. The Minister misrepresents and reflects on the piece of legislation that was passed in this house yesterday. That is not what the legislation does at all, Madam Speaker. It is just part of the continual misrepresentation by this hypocrite.
MADAM SPEAKER: Mr Connolly, please proceed.
MR CONNOLLY: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I was thrown somewhat off my track by Mr Moore then. What this does is to allow open slather research. Mrs Carnell, at great length today, has been squirming and wriggling about the new section 171B of the Act. We can have recourse to the presentation speech in these debates. We heard Mr Moore say, "No, we do not want the sort of clinical research in Part IV of the Act; we just need case notes". That was what was said in the debate yesterday. Section 171B in no way - - -
Mr Moore: On a point of order, Madam Speaker: If Mr Connolly had done any work on medical research, he would know that a case report is very different from case notes. It is just part of the misrepresentation, Madam Speaker.
MADAM SPEAKER: Mr Moore, if you would let him finish that answer, perhaps we could assess that a bit better. Mr Connolly, continue.
MR CONNOLLY: Madam Speaker, I table advice from the Government Solicitor's Office, which was obtained overnight and today and which shows very clearly that what the Opposition did yesterday allows a doctor to prescribe cannabis and keep case notes, make a little report, or do what he wants to. What it says here very clearly, legally, is that your section 171B is not a reference back to Part IV of the Act. If you had wanted to do that, you could have done it very simply. You could have amended your Bill yesterday to say, "Proceedings do not lie ... if a medical practitioner engaged in medical research ... pursuant to Part IV".
Mrs Carnell: We are happy to do that, if you are going to be pedantic about it.
MR CONNOLLY: But you did not. I warned you about what you were doing yesterday, but you were so busy playing your foolish little political games that you have made the Australian Capital Territory the laughing-stock of Australia and the world. I understand that the furore that has surrounded this rank political opportunism from Mrs Carnell - this Opposition Leader who has brought us Australia's most radical and wacky law reform - is now being reported around the world. Madam Speaker, I table the legal opinion. I hope that some of the calmer heads in the Opposition party room, particularly some of the lawyers, will sit down and read this and point out to Mrs Carnell that she has taken this jurisdiction down a very dangerous path. Canberrans were horrified when they woke this morning and read in the newspaper what Mrs Carnell had done. Read and think about what you have done.
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