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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 6 Hansard (25 May) . . Page.. 1872 ..
MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):
The most extraordinary thing Ms Tucker did the other day when we were talking about this bill was to suggest that it was all right to retain our subsidy in the ACT even if it meant people came across the border from Queanbeyan and New South Wales generally to buy our low-alcohol beer. Ms Tucker has been lecturing us for the last couple of days about how we have to have social capital in this territory-we have to build up social goals and reinforce the community-and how this government does not understand social capital. Here we have the leader of the ACT Greens-actually, the only ACT Green-telling us that it is all right to use ACT taxpayers' money to subsidise beer drinkers in New South Wales. That is a good example of social capitalism, Ms Tucker: we subsidise beer drinkers in New South Wales.
Mr Moore: You have to accept that there is a regional attitude.
MR HUMPHRIES: I am happy to accept a regional attitude, Mr Speaker, but my advice is that the potential for the loophole to be exploited actually goes beyond a regional impact and that, if people were able to manipulate the situation in some way to show that the sales were occurring through the ACT, it might be possible, theoretically or actually, to stream large amounts of these products through the ACT to attract the subsidy and then send them off to far-flung corners of New South Wales and perhaps other places as well. If it were only Queanbeyan, Yass and other areas around the ACT, what possible social advantage would there be for us in subsidising beer drinkers in New South Wales? That would have to be a classic, Mr Speaker, an absolute classic.
Mr Speaker, I thank the opposition for its support for this bill. I hope that the common sense it demonstrates will rub off one day on our friend, the ACT Green.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Bill agreed to in principle.
Leave granted to dispense with the detail stage.
Bill agreed to.
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
MR QUINLAN (9.05): Heading this way from my office is a wad of legalese in two scrutiny of bills committee reports and a response to one of them. I was promised a response to the other, but I have not got it. Heroically, I spent my dinner hour reading this material. I have a concern as to how the confluence of events occurs when we have a bill such as this one which has, quite apparently, contentious provisions within it.
Mr Moore: Except that it is a national agreement; hence the interstate agreement is put down.
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