Page 5868 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 7 December 2010
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mattered. But there was to be no consultation. If the Assembly wanted consultation on this, it did not matter, because what mattered to Mr Corbell was getting nine votes on the floor of the Assembly.
What we have here today is a challenge for members of the Legislative Assembly. Do they want appropriate scrutiny? We should suspend standing orders to discuss why this matter should be suspended and adjourned until a later time. (Time expired.)
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (4.12): I find myself rising not entirely clear—perhaps it is because I came in slightly late—as to why we are suspending standing orders. I am not sure if it is because Mrs Dunne wants to adjourn all of these bills in one go or if there is some other reason.
Mrs Dunne: So we can have a discussion about the adjournment.
MR RATTENBURY: Right.
Mr Corbell: She wants to speak—
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Mr Hargreaves): Excuse me, members, this is not a conversation across the floor.
MR RATTENBURY: Sorry; I started that somewhat, Mr Assistant Speaker.
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Minister and Mrs Dunne, if you want to have a discussion in the amicable way for which you are renowned, please do so outside. Mr Rattenbury.
MR RATTENBURY: In light of that slight confusion on my part, I will flag the approach the Greens intend to take to the full discussion this week around whether we should be suspending standing orders and to what end we might be doing so.
We do not intend to take a blanket approach to whether these bills should be debated or deferred. Each of them is somewhat different in its nature. Some of them are rather simple; some of them are rather more complex. We intend to address each bill on its relative merits as to whether it should be debated or not.
We are concerned by some of the timing issues. It certainly seems that a number of these bills have come in at the last possible moment, which seems rather unnecessary. For example, the consumer law bill that we will be dealing with on Thursday is a COAG arrangement. The agreement has been in place for quite some time; many jurisdictions have been legislating on that matter since earlier this year. The fact that in the ACT legislation was introduced at the last possible moment and will now be debated at the last possible moment before a necessary 1 January start seems to be an unfortunate and unnecessary jamming of that bill into the end of the sitting year, particularly given that other jurisdictions have been organised at a faster pace.
The situation resulted in the rather dramatic and breathless article in today’s paper about the potential loss of millions for the ACT. The suggestion is that, if we do not
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