Calder Cam: Summary Offences (Possession of High-power Laser Pointers) Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCalder Cam: Summary Offences (Possession of High-power Laser Pointers) Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 25 June 2014. Volume:699;Page:18915. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr CAM CALDER (National):I do appreciate the sensitivity that fellow members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee are displaying when we are talking about the commencement date. This Summary Offences (Possession of High-power Laser Pointers) Amendment Bill is a very serious bill. There has been a bit of banter about it over the course of it because I think a lot of people mistakenly think when they think of laser pointers even if they think of high-powered laser pointers that they are actually toys and of course they are not. That is why the commencement date for when this bill comes into effect is so important. Members of the committee sensed my pain when I was unsuccessful in getting an immediate enactment of this bill so that once it is passed and has got Royal assent it then comes into force.I picked up on the points raised by a number of speakers. These speakers have raised points that are very very pertinent and it was canvassed at some length by the committee. It has been said that we could have gone out to 6 months. That would have been ridiculous as the commencement date. Why would you go out to 6 months? I cannot think of any reason why. However I think it was one of the timespans that was canvassed by the committee. I thought I had it won. I thought I had it won initially on the committee with saying “immediately”. Nothing succeeds like success; let us get it done in down out—we have got it. But it was not to be.I have to pay credit when talking about the commencement date to the artful hand of this maestro of committee chairmanship. I refer of course to David Bennett. David Bennett is known for many things he is esteemed for many things and he has a reputation for many things but nothing is more illustrious than his highly burnished reputation as a very successful and capable committee chair. It was his calm handling of what could have been a fraught situation—it could have been a slightly angst-ridden situation despite the inherent collegiality of this committee when we were discussing this very pertinent point of the commencement date. But as it transpired through the calmness the demeanour the ability to build bridges that he displayed within the committee when we were discussing the commencement date—Mike Sabin: He built bridges and got over them.Dr CAM CALDER: Well there you go—a very pertinent point from the member from the far north who is doing an outstanding job in the far north not only with his perceptive speeches in the Committee on this very important bill but also as the calm presence on the committee who just grounds the chairman and makes sure that things happen in a timely manner with consultation.So we got to this stage that I was uncomfortable about. I have to say that I was uncomfortable but for the greater good I was convinced. I mean I am learning. I am almost away from this place but you learn every day in this House and you realise that politics is the art of the possible is it not? It is the art of the possible. The commencement date is possible only because we came to an agreement because there was openmindedness on both sides. We had a very collegial Opposition. There was a lot of debate—6 months; as I say I was going for “immediately”. And yet the voices in the committee gradually moved around so that 28 days was the length of time that the committee agreed to—I do have to take responsibility; I was part of that committee—unanimously. This has been the great thing about this bill. It has been unanimous not only in the committee but across the House. So I think that if you ask anyone in this Chamber they will support the 28-day period because that is what came about from the select committee for the commencement date.I have to say I am very grateful as the member who first put up this bill and did not even think about the commencement date at that early stage because I had to get it through the caucus and then we had to get it drawn from the ballot and—