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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 4 Hansard (24 June) . . Page.. 1004 ..

MS CARNELL (continuing):

Mr Speaker, we very rarely pass pieces of legislation in a single day's sitting. Maybe the people who have been here for longer than I have will tell me that I am wrong, but I have never known a piece of legislation to be passed in the same day if it had the potential to adversely affect certain members of our community. We have passed legislation where we have had to protect members of the community, where there was potentially money that needed to be paid or that could have been required of a particular person. I remember that there was a piece of legislation about lotteries that had to be passed very quickly. When I suggested to Ms Tucker earlier that it was unusual to pass legislation that would adversely affect people in one day without showing it to them, she basically said, "Oh, well, that is just bad luck. We need a cap, and it really does not matter that some people will be adversely affected".

Already, Mr Speaker, we have identified at least one case of a particular club which has significant plans for extension in with Planning - they are quite significantly through the planning process - and which is expecting to be able to get extra poker machines that it may not be able to get under this legislation because of the way it is drafted. It gives new clubs precedence over existing clubs, and existing clubs that do not have applications in and have not spent substantial amounts of money may or may not be able to apply for poker machines. Is it fair for a club that has spent significant dollars but actually has not started to build - it means they have gone through all the board processes, they have raised the money, they have planning approval, all of those sorts of things - to potentially end up in a situation where they cannot go ahead?

Mr Kaine: That is not true. All they do is put in an application, and the commissioner will deal with it.

MS CARNELL: Unfortunately, Mr Kaine, after reading the legislation and after taking some advice on that legislation, there is no guarantee whatsoever that that club will be able to apply.

Mr Kaine: That is why we put a cap on it, Chief Minister. There is no guarantee that any club will get what it wants.

MS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, on that basis, legislation passed in one day, as members of the committee are now admitting, could significantly adversely affect at least one group in the community - it may not, but it may - without their being able to have input into the process.

The issue is not about the cap. Again, I have no problems with the cap. The issue is about the process and whether we really know the impact of the legislation that is in front of us. The reality is that we do not know; nobody knows. Yes; we, as an Assembly, have supported a cap. But do we support the legislation and the potential effects that the legislation will have? The fact is that we do not know. We have had a number of different attempts to amend this legislation in the 24 hours since we have had it. As I said, the scrutiny of Bills committee had significant problems with it. A lot of the people that it affects have not seen the legislation at all. I just come back to the case,

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