Page 120 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 28 February 2007
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It was drawn to my attention late this afternoon that because of the sitting hour it may not be possible to have this legislation properly dealt with and put into effect by the commencement date indicated on the legislation. Therefore, I am moving this minor amendment to clarify that the commencement date is as intended in the substantive bill. I commend that amendment to the Assembly.
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (6.30): I will not be supporting that amendment, and also I want to clarify some issues in response to some things that Mr Corbell said in his speech recently—just now in fact—about what he believed I was saying. Of course, he did not hear what I was saying—
MR SPEAKER: You have really got to confine yourself to the amendment that is before the Assembly.
DR FOSKEY: I disagree with the amendment. It just simply enables the bill as put forward by the government to be operational. I believe that I should have the right to clarify what the minister believes that I said. In fact, he has entirely the wrong impression.
MR SPEAKER: You are speaking about an amendment which has been moved by the minister. That is the motion that is before the house and you have got to remain relevant.
DR FOSKEY: Thank you.
Amendment agreed to.
MR SESELJA (Molonglo) (6.32): I seek leave to move amendment Nos 1 to 4 circulated in my name together.
Leave granted.
MR SESELJA: I move amendments Nos 1 to 4 circulated in my name together [see schedule 2 at page 125].
These amendments, as I have flagged earlier, are simply designed to take away the retrospective nature of this legislation. I have already covered the reason why the opposition feels the need to put forward these amendments. But I would simply add that what we are doing here is fixing a problem which arose in a court case. The problem relates to regulations, which are now being retrospectively made valid, and which were considered last year by us. We were not, as an Assembly, considering in detail the regulation making power, and in fact it is the regulation making power in the enabling legislation which the court found was insufficient to allow a regulation of this kind.
I think the argument that we are really just putting in place what the intention of the Assembly was is still somewhat spurious, because certainly from my point of view, in terms of what we looked at last year, we looked at the regulation. It was not certainly something I considered as to whether or not this was within power. That is something
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