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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 8 Hansard (27 June) . . Page.. 2301 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

So, contrary to what you might think, Ms Reilly, that program went very well. As part of our review of special education, in terms of programs for next year, we are certainly looking to build on the success of that and to ensure that parents and their children are properly catered for.

MS TUCKER: My question is to Mr De Domenico. I would like the Minister to clarify the following matters concerning the operation of the Totalcare incinerator. Minister, we have written to your office, actually - initially in January and then in May - and we would like to get an answer. The questions are: What air toxins have been tested for from the stack of the Totalcare incinerator? If tested, what were the results? Has there ever been testing done for dioxins? If tested, what were the results? This is six months later, and we are still asking.

MR DE DOMENICO: Ms Tucker, I will take that question on notice. You have asked me what toxins have been tested for and what were the ratings. You say that it has been six months. This is a very complicated area. I am getting conflicting data from a couple of areas in Totalcare. Instead of coming into this place and giving you what is, potentially, a political and inaccurate answer - I am sure that you would take me to task if I were to do that - I would rather make sure that my facts were straight first before I responded to you. I will take it on notice. Just as soon as I am satisfied that the information coming to me is accurate, I will give you that information.

MR OSBORNE: Mr Speaker, my question is to Mrs Carnell as leader of the Liberal-Green coalition - GLIBS. Mrs Carnell, the principles for a national competition policy, to which the ACT Government is a signatory, clearly state that universal and uniformly applied rules should apply to all market participants, regardless of the form of business ownership; and that conduct with anti-competitive potential said to be in the public interest should be assessed by an appropriate transparent process, with provision for review, to demonstrate the nature and incidence of the public costs and benefits claimed. Chief Minister, do you not agree that your trading hours policy clearly contravenes these two principles?

MRS CARNELL: No, I do not agree. I think that the legislation that we will pass, hopefully, later on today is the most deregulatory trading hours legislation in this country, by an absolute country mile. What we have elsewhere in Australia is debates on things like whether, in Victoria, they should be able to be open on 10 or 15 Sundays a year. Those are the sorts of debates that are happening everywhere else in this country, not debates about whether we should be interested in opening for 85 hours a week, 106 hours a week or whatever it is. The reality is that our approach here allows substantially more flexibility than is allowed anywhere else in Australia.

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