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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 3 Hansard (11 March) . . Page.. 880 ..
about elapsed time-of the circumstances that surround what has happened in Canberra over the Christmas/New Year period.
We now have before us a substantial number of amendments. We have had one Liberal Party amendment today and we were given 12 pages of government amendments at 4 o'clock yesterday. It seems to me that they are all right, and there does not seem to be any particular problem with them, but there are a lot of issues in addition to the amendments and the whole thing should be brought to a committee so that it can be considered in a seemly way. Among other things, committees have a reviewing role to make sure that legislation meets the needs of the community.
There has been consultation, but that consultation for the most part has taken place behind closed doors. There has never been any public airing of views. People have written to me and to other members. As a result of some of that consultation, amendments have been drawn up. But we do not know what amendments have not been considered. There may be better amendments out there. These are things that should be properly looked at in the context of a committee.
MR STANHOPE
(Chief Minister, Attorney-General, Minister for Community Affairs and Minister for the Environment) (3.50): Mr Speaker, I seek leave to speak again.Leave granted.
MR STANHOPE
: I want to make a couple of quick points, and I do not want to delay the debate too much. It is not fair to say that there has not been an appropriate opportunity for consultation or for community participation in this particular debate. There has been ample opportunity. Another interpretation of the lack of letters to the editor or vocal points of view that Mrs Dunne talked about is that people are not concerned. They had a look at the bill, they went through it, and they thought, "Well, there is nothing in there to complain about or that I want to write a letter to the editor about."I made the point before-and I did not have in front of me at the time an explanatory memorandum-that it is relevant to go to the nature of the amendments with which we are dealing today in relation to the 37 pieces of legislation which this bill seeks to amend. Certainly there is a live and active debate, and most of the submissions that I have received deal with the issue of marriage and go on to issues around the adoption of children. Certainly, a lot of the correspondence that has been received by most of us is from groups that have issues around people of the same sex marrying. There is a real concern out there, which we have heard expressed-and I think this is at the heart of what the Liberal Party is talking about here today-that in some way these proposals subvert the institution of marriage.
Mrs Dunne
: They don't in and of themselves.MR STANHOPE
: Mrs Dunne says they do.Mrs Dunne
: I said they don't in and of themselves.
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