Mr PYNE (10:13 AM) —In my earlier contribution I was dealing with the issue of the states having a more restrictive regime. I would like to comment on a couple of comments made in the debate last night by both the Attorney-General and the member for Perth because I think they go directly to the amendment that I have moved. Dealing first with the member for Perth, one of the things that he said was that the Commonwealth legislation was being drafted with the cooperation of the states and that the state governments who were supporting the Commonwealth legislation did not want their own piece of legislation anymore and were happy to have a national regime. That is all very well for the current state governments in South Australia, Western Australia and Victoria, but when those pieces of legislation were passed by those parliaments, they were obviously supported by governments that thought this was (1) good for good governance and (2) wanted by the public. If the states do not want that legislation anymore, it is their responsibility to change it—it is their responsibility to deal with their own issues. Why should the Commonwealth make their lives easier by overriding state legislation under a national regime?

You could also ask why Queensland, Tasmania and New South Wales should be helped out of their current dearth of any legislation in this area at all just because the premiers of those states do not want to bite the bullet on this particular issue. Clearly, Premier Beattie and Premier Carr would much prefer this debate, this controversy and the division that this bill has caused to happen at the Commonwealth level where the impact on them is negligible than to happen in their own Labor Party caucuses in Brisbane and Sydney.

But why should the Commonwealth accept that position? Why should we allow ourselves to be the ones who are required to deal with this issue just because the states do not want to repeal their own pieces of legislation because they are too cowardly to take on this issue? Why should we assist New South Wales and Queensland to deal with an issue which they are not prepared to take on because they are frightened to do so? It is an absurdity. The Commonwealth should do the things that the Commonwealth thinks are right but it should not respond to the Labor states and territories who are not prepared to deal with tough issues because they know they will split their own caucuses.

The Attorney-General suggested that under my amendment I would be suggesting that state laws could override the Commonwealth law in this area if the states had a more restrictive regime. I do not have the least bit of a problem with that. The head of power in this area is with the states. That is why there is state legislation in place in South Australia, Victoria and Western Australia—because the head of power under our Constitution lies with the states in this area. The states are referring power to the Commonwealth. But the states do not have to refer all the power in a particular area to the Commonwealth. If they wish to, they can quite happily have their own regimes. Under this legislation they could have them under my amendment as long as they were not inconsistent with the Commonwealth by diluting the Commonwealth's regime rather than making it more restrictive.

The Attorney-General suggests that it is an extraordinary proposition to allow state laws to override the Commonwealth when the power is actually a state head of power. I do not understand that argument. He might want to elaborate on that if he intends to speak again.

In relation to that, I would also say that that very problem was obviously considered by COAG. From my understanding, the COAG agreement countenanced the possibility of regimes at the state level that were more restrictive than at the Commonwealth level. Obviously they had countenanced the possibility of the referral of power to the Commonwealth by the states but with the states maintaining some control in the event that they wished to have more restrictive regimes.

I ask my colleagues to seriously consider the possibility of allowing states to maintain their pieces of legislation. If they do not wish to do so, it should be up to them to change legislation, not the Commonwealth.