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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 11 Hansard (19 October) . . Page.. 3303 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

is a maximum period. Indeed, I would point that out it is exactly what has been in the legislation for a number of years and it is simply being reiterated here. Mr Kaine made a number of other suggestions. Certainly, I am quite happy to have my people look at his comments. Indeed, if any improvements can be made, I would be pleased to see that occur.

Ms Tucker made a number of comments. I am appreciative of the supportive comments she made in relation to a number of areas. We certainly have disagreement in some areas. Of course, therapeutic protection is one such area. The Chief Minister made mention of the fact that the Bill was offered to Ms Tucker's committee to look at in November of last year. In the interest of members, I thought that it would be sensible and the Government thought that it would be sensible to give the committee the opportunity to look at it at a stage where a lot of work had been done. The drafting instructions had been prepared - here they are; they are quite detailed - and Ms Tucker's committee was asked whether it wished to consider them.

We did note, as you can see from my letter, which I will table if members are interested, that some of the proposals had been dealt with in a review previously which was the subject of consideration by the Social Policy Committee. Ms Tucker replied on behalf of her committee, stating, to quote the relevant part:

The committee has carefully considered your proposed referral of the review proposals and is of the unanimous view that it would not be appropriate for the committee to undertake this task. The committee's reasons are:

the committee could not undertake the task thoroughly and with credibility without seeking input from the community -

that is fair enough, I suppose -

the task would result in duplication as the community has already been consulted extensively -

I think that was a valid comment -

the drafting instructions have already been referred to Parliamentary Counsel - any changes proposed by the committee would result in the drafter being required to redo work;

the community could see the committee's involvement as an unnecessary delay in having the bill presented to the Assembly as there is a community expectation that the next step in the process will be the introduction of the bill -

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