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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 9 Hansard (1 September) . . Page.. 2699 ..

MR SMYTH (Minister for Urban Services) (12.25): Mr Speaker, pursuant to standing order 174, I move:

Mr Berry: Are you going to make a case?

MR SMYTH: No. There are things to be resolved. I think the case stands.

MR BERRY (12.26): I want you to make a case and I would like to answer the questions. This is a preposterous situation. We have just been through a debate where a whole range of questions were thrown at me by members in this place. I said to the Chief Minister , "I think I have answered them all", and she said, "No, you have not". I said, "If there are any outstanding ones, let me know", and she said no. I want somebody to get up now and make a case for the referral of this Bill to a committee. It will be a joke if no case is made for the referral; it will be an absolute joke.

I am prepared to stand here and answer any questions that you might wish to raise in relation to the matter and deal with it openly and honestly, but I am not happily going to go through a process where the people opposite impose this sort of charade on this legislature. They really have to make out a case. It is incumbent upon them to make out a case. Which questions were not answered? I am happy to rise and answer them if you will give me the opportunity, but if you are going to sit there quietly and say nothing you have not made out a case.

MS CARNELL (Chief Minister) (12.27): Mr Speaker, just for the record, Mr Kaine and I and others have put a number of questions and Mr Berry in no way answered those questions. I will give an example. One question was whether the employers were going to get their money back if the fund was oversubscribed. He is suggesting that it would just mean that people would not have to pay in the future. There is no real information about that in this legislation. There is no indication of how the fund would work. All sorts of issues still have to be answered and I think our committee structure is the way to do that; it is that simple.

MR CORBELL (12.28): Mr Speaker, this is a quite inappropriate response from the Government. If members of the Government were genuine in saying that they believed that there was merit in this Bill but they just wanted a few questions answered, they would have voted for it in principle, but they did not. They did not vote for it in principle because they are opposed to it in principle; so why are they now referring it to the Urban Services Committee? They are referring it to the Urban Services Committee to delay it - to delay it indefinitely. They know that the agenda of the Urban Services Committee is so full that this matter probably would not be properly considered until around the middle of next year.

Ms Carnell: That is not true.

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