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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 4 Hansard (21 April) . . Page.. 1040 ..
MR BERRY (continuing):
"(5) Subsection (4) applies in relation to an offence against this Act whether the act or omission alleged to constitute the offence occurred before or after the commencement of that subsection.".
Mr Speaker, these amendments are similar in operation to the amendment last voted on in relation to the Occupational Health and Safety (Amendment) Bill. They merely confirm the intent of this Assembly in respect of the operation of the Dangerous Goods Act. I need say no more.
MR MOORE (Minister for Health and Community Care) (11.33): Mr Speaker, I take this opportunity, thanks to the efficiency of my colleague Mr Smyth, to read the correct quote from T.S. Eliot's The Hollow Men. It makes the point I am making here, and how appropriate it is. The quote is:
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
Mr Speaker, it is very interesting looking at this legislation, because I think this is a particularly sad day for this Assembly, with the precedent that we have set almost on the tenth anniversary of this Assembly. Since I have the T.S. Eliot poem in my hand, it may bode well if I just read the first stanza. People here can see how it applies to themselves where it is appropriate. It reads:
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar.
It seems to me that members who support these amendments ought to think about that poem from T.S. Eliot.
MS TUCKER: Mr Speaker, I seek to make a personal explanation under standing order 46.
MR SPEAKER: Yes, proceed. You can speak to the amendments.
MS TUCKER: I do not know whether it is relevant to these amendments. I just want to put it on the record that Mr Humphries was saying that I found this debate amusing or something to that effect. That is not correct. I have taken this piece of legislation very seriously. I was laughing at a particular exchange between two members on the floor.
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