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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 11 Hansard (20 October) . . Page.. 3397 ..

Mr Humphries: Well, his department might.

MR BERRY: No, no. Only the Minister can.

Mr Humphries: No, no, no, no.

Mr Stefaniak: No, no, Wayne.

MR BERRY: It says, "The Minister".

Mr Stefaniak: The Minister, or a person who has an interest in the matter, or any person prescribed by the regulations. That is quite a few people, Wayne.

Mr Humphries: The Minister can delegate.

Mr Stefaniak: You can.

MR BERRY: Well, the Minister can delegate. That is true. Okay, but is this going to happen? Is he going to go after Bill Stefaniak because he paid 29 bursars, or is he going to go after him because he paid several hundred other ACT government workers? Well, there is no sign of that, because he never went after the employers who paid the thousands of wharfies who got every dollar from the industrial dispute. This law has been emasculated by inaction. So it is a rubbish argument.

Mr Humphries: Oh, so it's illegal but we can get away with it.

MR BERRY: No, it is not. Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, it is not a question - - -

Mr Humphries: I see. It's illegal, but we are allowed to do it if we can get away with it. I see. We thought we were going to get away with Bruce Stadium. We could break the law at Bruce Stadium.

MR TEMPORARY DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Mr Berry has the floor.

MR BERRY: Well, the interjection was: "We thought we would get away with Bruce Stadium". If it said at the bottom that this is not an offence, you would have.

MR HUMPHRIES (Treasurer, Attorney-General and Minister for Justice and Community Safety) (4.41): I think Mr Berry has rather complicated and probably sunk his own argument by what he has just said. First of all, the amendment does nothing to solve the basic problem with this motion. The basic problem with this motion is that it requires us to do something which, on the face of it, is or could be illegal - to breach the Workplace Relations Act. So adding the words he wants to add in this amendment is useless in respect of solving that problem. It makes no contribution to that problem at all.

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