AGRICULTURAL AND VETERINARY CHEMICALS (CONTROL OF USE) AMENDMENT BILL 2011

Mrs ARMITAGE ( Launceston ) - I will not go on too long but I think the honourable Leader has just said it all. It is a difficult area to regulate and, as was mentioned at the briefing earlier, there has been much consultation. I have taken a lot of notes here and I think there have been a couple of rounds of consultation over the time, and mention of regulations. Really, what it comes down to is that it is a bit like our debate yesterday - when the Government will not give something to the House, it brings up doubts as to what is in it. If they simply provided the regulations I am sure there would not be an issue, that we could actually go on and deal with it. Once you will not give something or you say you cannot give it seems as though someone has already seen it. There was consultation, as was mentioned, regulations were discussed and we must have had something to go into consultation, so it is all this doubt and innuendo and I really believe that we will just shun the regulations that will precede it.

The other thing that concerned me at the briefing was when I said it concerns us all the Leader did seem to think it concerned us at all. As far as I am concerned we are stakeholders too because we represent people. I represent the people of Launceston , the honourable member over here represents the people of Murchison, we have Apsley and we have all the areas, so we are stakeholders or we are representing stakeholders. To me that is just as important as the other stakeholders that were involved in the consultation. Not everyone could get to the consultation and I am sure they expect their elected representatives to do their best to make sure that when something goes through this House it is reviewed and we take every opportunity to make sure that anything that we pass has been adequately looked at and scrutinised. Therefore, I will certainly support the adjournment before us, but I would say that maybe the Government needs to realise that when they will not provide something it brings up doubt as to why they will not provide it and that is what causes a lot of the concern to me. I will be supporting the adjournment.