Bennett DavidHon DAVID BENNETT (National): Thank you Madam Chair. I'm just very disappointed in the couple of words that the Minister used in her answer. She mentioned the words unnecessary expense". Now I'd like the Minister to explain what she actually means by "unnecessary expense" because that implies that the democratic process of a council—or if somebody brought a petition to a council it would be seen as an unnecessary expense for that council to go through. I find it completely incredulous that the Minister would say that. We have a political system that is based on democracy and that's why we have some of the most senior and respected members of our political system—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! The member will resume his seat. This is a clause by clause debate. It is being a clause by clause debate very narrow in scope. I am very willing and happy for members across the committee to be fulsome in their contributions because of the truncated nature of this bill but I would be appreciative if the member would stick to the essence of clause 2 which is the commencement of the bill.Hon DAVID BENNETT: Madam Chair it is about the commencement because the Minister talked about the unnecessary expense and that effectively means that she's bringing the commencement date forward so councils don't have the potential of having to pay all costs of any unnecessary expense in the Minister's view of local democracy. So that's why the commencement date is so crucial Madam Chair. It is in the sense that the Minister is basically saying that she wants to circumvent a political process for the potential savings of certain councils. Well we have a political process for a reason because councils are not infallible. Every three years they go to election—just like Governments are not infallible. They go to election every three years. That is the ultimate sanction that the public has.Now to take away the democracy in the commencement date does that because the Minister has made it very clear in this Chamber in the last half an hour that the reason behind this commencement date is to take away unnecessary expense. It takes away local democracy. That's what this bill is about. The Minister just admitted it. I would like the Minister to explain what she considers to be unnecessary expense. That is the fundamental reason why they've got a commencement date—that is the one we are seeing here today. How she defines "unnecessary expense" how that actually relates to local democracy and decision-making processes and then finally what sanctions do the public have if they don't have the ability to actually make their voice known? Just say the public have a different point of view from the councillors—shouldn't they be listened to? Shouldn't they have the ultimate sanction like they do at election every three years? Is it now going to be a question of unnecessary expense of a Minister's view of what the expenses of the council should be that's going to override democracy? Or should it actually be a commencement date that actually looks at what is practical gives the community the say that they deserve and the say they get every three years? It's a serious question for the Minister to actually explain those words. I'm just using the words that she used in her commencement date debate in her speech and she was very clear that the unnecessary expense is something that is a driver for her decision making to have this current commencement date. If that is the case then I would like the Minister to explain that because that overrides democracy in this country."