Senator IAN CAMPBELL (5:11 PM) —I advise senators that the standing orders of the Senate require that no divisions be taken after 6 p.m. on Thursdays. That means that it is impossible for this piece of legislation to be passed after that. I would appreciate being able to move it along. I think we can do that; we have debated most things. It is standing order No. 57.

Senator Schacht —I would have thought we'd complete this before 6 p.m.

Senator IAN CAMPBELL —I think so too. Very few people are aware of the WA provision, as we call it, in the standing orders which allows WA senators to get home on a Thursday night. It has been in effect for about 12 months.

The coalition will strongly oppose this. Firstly, we believe that because of the Australian constitution we can only possibly rely on the corporations power here and because many of the major shopping centre owners are not corporations under the Commonwealth law you simply cannot achieve it. I am familiar with some advice that was provided to the Motor Traders Association by Blake Dawson Waldron that involves a scheme to put special taxation on organisations that do not incorporate and thereby bring these organisations under the reach of the corporations power. We would be interested to know whether the Australian Labor Party supports the Blake Dawson Waldron proposal—under Denis Rose's hand, I think. I would be interested to know whether the Democrats propose forcing property companies to incorporate by using a tax to coerce them to do that. That is the only way you could possibly seek to give this proposal any teeth.

The Australian Labor Party as late as 22 April 1997 when Senator Schacht went on Mr Price's program on 3AW and said—

Senator Schacht —In 1997?

Senator IAN CAMPBELL —Yes, 1997. When Mr Price, who had obviously been campaigning on these issues, raised the business about the retail tenancy act—he actually said residential tenancy act but I think he meant retail—you said:

In . . . both. For the tenancy . . . under the Constitution retail tenancies themselves are a matter for the state, so there's a matter of getting good legislation at the state level.

Obviously the Reid report convinced you that that was not correct. More lately your leader, Mr Beazley, at a meeting on 31 August 1997 in Perth on the same issue said:

You have problems of the day to day experience of tenants that goes beyond the general propositions that are covered by Unconscionable Conduct. You need a good State Act to be able to deal with that.

And he referred the people at the meeting to my friend Doug Shave. So the Labor Party supported that up until a few months ago.

There is no doubt about the unconstitutionality of it and, in the meantime, under the `New Deal—Fair Deal' legislation, the Commonwealth government undertook to use all of its efforts to ensure that we achieved higher standards of retail tenancy legislation in the states. As recently as 5 December 1997, all state ministers responsible in this area, including the Hon. Sandra Nori MP from the New South Wales government, signed on in these terms. The draft communique from the special meeting of Commonwealth, state and territory ministers and parliamentary secretaries responsible for retail tenancy matters, which I will table, reads:

The Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries endorsed the objective of establishing consistent legislative or regulatory minimum retail tenancy standards across Australian jurisdictions. Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries supported achievement of this objective through State and Territory legislation or regulation. The Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries reaffirmed that proposed or existing State and Territory-based legislation or regulation is best placed to deal most effectively with retail tenancy issues.

You would probably say, `Well, they would say that.' But it is historic and I think Senator Schacht would recognise that to get a ministerial council, or whatever this particular council seek to call themselves, to say absolutely without equivocation that they will sign on to establishing `consistent legislative or regulatory minimum retail tenancy standards across Australian jurisdictions' is quite historic. They have not done that before. The states have been developing their own legislation.

Senator Schacht —It has taken them about 15 years to get it done, of course; they dragged their feet. I've been through this on other things too.

Senator IAN CAMPBELL —I have had that experience as well on the Corporations Law but the reality is that you can get these things into place.

The Commonwealth has the will there, as do the states. It is a matter of political imperative for the states. It is a hot issue out there for the states as much as it is for any of us. Hardly a week goes by that Ray Martin does not have a show on some tenant being done over by a landlord. The Commonwealth is going to drive this process. The bottom line is that you do not have the constitutional power at the federal level. The Labor Party recognised that up until a few weeks ago. We will be opposing this amendment.