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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 2 Hansard (27 February) . . Page.. 621 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

On the other hand, Mr Humphries says to us, "If I prescribe something else, I will put it on the table and I will highlight it for you. I will make it very clear to you". I think that is not necessary under the circumstances. It is much better for Mr Humphries, if he finds another area, to bring it back to the Assembly and then proactively say to us, "Will you please consider doing the same thing that we did last time?". As I said, I have accepted your argument about X-rated videos and so on. When you get another situation like that, come back to this Assembly and say, "Let us move on this as well". It removes that notion of somebody like Mr Humphries having this power.

There is another advantage to this amendment. Mr Humphries may be Attorney-General for less than a year. That is highly likely, because our election will be held in a year's time and it may well be that either Mr Humphries and his party are no longer in government or, even if they are in government, Mr Humphries may have a different portfolio or different responsibilities or whatever. Then we will have in the position somebody else who has not made the same commitments as Mr Humphries has made. I quite accept Mr Humphries's commitments, Mr Speaker. My experience in this Assembly over the last eight or nine years, or whatever it is, has shown me that when Mr Humphries makes these commitments he lives up to them. I do not have much problem there, but I think putting that into law is the wrong way to deal with this sort of complicated issue, as Mr Wood put it. Whether it is a moral standard or however you want to describe it, it is the sort of issue that should come back before the Assembly in a proactive way.

I think this is a very sensible amendment. The Greens originally put forward this idea when they circulated the amendment, and, perhaps rethinking it, it might be worthwhile allowing this legislation to go through, but with this exception.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General) (6.42): Mr Speaker, I must say that I personally do not really relish the idea of having the power to be trying to spot activities in the Territory which might contribute - - -

Mr Whitecross: We are looking after you, then.

MR HUMPHRIES: Let me finish what I am saying, Mr Whitecross; do not jump in too quickly - contribute to a situation where we are preserving, for example, the amenity of Civic or whatever other objective you might want to perform by legislation such as this. However, the fact of the matter is that it is very clear that some people are quite prepared to exploit loopholes in legislation in order to provide this kind of entertainment if they feel they are going to make money out of it. I hope Mr Moore is not trying to distract my friends the Greens while I am making my arguments.

Mr Moore: Certainly not.

Mr Wood: That is something you have never done, Mr Humphries.

MR HUMPHRIES: Not at all; never. The fact is that people will try to exploit loopholes. They will find loopholes and they will try to exploit them. Let us say, for argument's sake - this is an example someone here gave me earlier today - that someone decided to offer in the Territory entertainment involving sexual intercourse

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