Mr BAYLEY (Clark) – Honourable Speaker, this is an issue of great current, historical and future significance for lutruwita/Tasmania and for us as Tasmanians. The state has taken the commendable step of issuing a formal state apology to people affected and the harm done by our past laws, and that is commendable. The next logical step from making that apology from making that apology is to make sure that there is a formal mechanism in our laws that deals with redress.
At the end of the day, that is what people who have been harmed by Tasmanian past laws are looking for. That has been very clear in the communications to us as members of this place, and it is an entirely reasonable expectation in light of an apology and admission of harm that was caused.
Debate on this bill was never completed last year, but you did have a community consultation. There was a community consultation on last year’s bill, but it absolutely was not possible to know what would be in this bill until it was tabled in the House last week. It appeared last week and the community was hoping for and expecting, because they have been advocating for it, this formal mechanism for redress, but it simply was not in the bill. Now they are asking us as members of this place to bring forward the appropriate amendments to make sure that redress is formally captured in the bill. We take that responsibility very seriously.
We have talented people in our office that can draft amendments to legislation, but this is such a significant piece of amendment architecture that it needs OPC’s attention. There is limited access to OPC and there are a lot of demands on their time. We have heard from the Speaker that there are still outstanding issues associated with the funding in the mechanisms of this House, and that is why we have moved that this debate be adjourned. It is entirely appropriate to give time for those mechanisms to be drafted and cleared with OPC so they are beyond reproach and so that we can have a debate about the substance of the issue, not the technicalities of the amendments.
That is why we are moving to adjourn this debate until 10 September. It is entirely appropriate and it will give time for us to do a proper job with these amendments.
Debate adjourned.
