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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 8 Hansard (26 June) . . Page.. 2163 ..

MR MOORE: I have a supplementary question, Mr Speaker. So, Mr Humphries, are you going to put a process into place to show genuine consultation and, where you disagree with recommendations of your LAPAC, will you actually publish the reasons why you have rejected their recommendations?

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, it has not been part of the planning process until now. Mr Moore is one of the architects of the Territory Plan and the planning legislation. If he thinks Ministers should give reasons when they reject a specific point of view put to them from particular sources, I can live with that. That would be reasonable.

Mr Moore: We are talking about LAPACs. Come off it! You established the LAPACs. I had nothing to do with it.

MR SPEAKER: Order!

MR HUMPHRIES: I listen to the LAPACs when I am involved in a decision, and I have shown that that is the case. I have taken the LAPACs' role very seriously. No-one can say that I have not, to be frank. But, if Mr Moore wants me to go one step further and have this sort of formalised process where they put a view to me in writing and I formally write back and say, "I disagree" or "I agree" and "These are the reasons", I am prepared to accept that; but I think he should put it in the form of an amendment to the Territory Plan or the planning legislation.

MR OSBORNE: My question is to the Attorney-General. Minister, you will recall that last week I asked you a question regarding licensing fees being sought by the Australian Performing Rights Association from small businesses which use radios in their offices. My question is this: Do you think it is fair that recording artists should seek a fee from members of the public who listen to their radios while at work, when they are already being paid a fee by the radio stations which broadcast their songs? Does your Government support this double-dipping, for want of a better word, by APRA?

Ms Follett: It is a little bit out of order.

MR HUMPHRIES: No. Mr Speaker, I will make a short comment on that. It is Commonwealth legislation. I think there is a good basis for saying that people who are performing artists in this community - Australia - deserve to be remunerated for the work that they do. If a band makes a recording and then people use that recording to make money - which is what businesses basically do when they play music or otherwise use that music to bring in customers or entertain them while they are waiting in a queue or whatever it might be - I think there is a basis for saying that, if someone is making money from it, they ought to be paying the people who have actually produced that work. I believe that people should be paid fairly for their labour, and this, in a sense, is a way of doing that.

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