Page 2258 - Week 07 - Thursday, 27 August 2020
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occur, and they have occurred in our community. So it is time for us to take this important action today to ban these harmful practices and to send the strongest possible social message to protect vulnerable Canberrans and to promote inclusion across our community. These practices are child abuse. Child abuse is criminalised.
The Attorney-General, in his most eloquent, powerful and passionate speech before the lunch break was absolutely spot on and I commend him for his courage and for his support of this legislation. I have to say, Minister Ramsay, being in tears listening to your speech before I did a press conference on the budget was a difficult thing, but so powerful were your words and it was so important that you said them in this place. So let me be clear, the government will not be supporting any further delays. The government will not be supporting any proposals to punt this off to a committee in some future parliament. It is time to be clear about where we stand on these issues.
The opposition needs to be clear about backing up its in-principle statement, and not send two messages. Let me assure the opposition that every single one of their private emails that are sent out to these groups gets shared with us. We have seen them all, and most of them find their way into the paper anyway, before they get to us. All the people the opposition has been sending these double messages to have been sharing them. They have become very public, and everyone knows. Every meeting you go to that you think is private—just ask Marcus Bastiaan—someone will be recording it, and it will be shared. So there should be no more double messages. Opposition members should stand by the very clear principles that they have set out today, and which I have commended them for. They should not try to run different arguments with different groups, and they should not present themselves publicly in one way and then privately run campaigns, as has been going on. We have been seeing them; the media has been seeing them. Everyone knows what is going on. Stand by the principle. I commend this bill to the Assembly.
Question agreed to.
Bill agreed to in principle
Detail stage
Clauses 1 to 6, by leave, taken together.
MR COE (Yerrabi—Leader of the Opposition) (3.36): I seek leave to refer this bill to the incoming Chief Minister of the Tenth Assembly for referral to an appropriate committee of that Tenth Assembly for inquiry and report.
Leave granted.
MR COE: I move the motion circulated in my name:
That this Assembly refers the bill to the incoming Chief Minister of the 10th Assembly for referral to an appropriate committee of the 10th Assembly for inquiry and report.
I think that this is a prudent way forward. It is also a way of addressing some of the concerns raised by the Law Society and others, and I think it is possible that this can
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