ACT Greens Leader Shane Rattenbury said he was surprised when a bill to decriminalise drugs was put forward and it should have been mentioned by Labor during the election.
Mr Rattenbury said if Labor intended to bring this forward they should have had the courage to take it to the 2020 territory election.
"I paid pretty close attention during the last election campaign and I did not hear that matter talked about," he said
"Obviously, things emerge through the course of a term and you do some research, you sit on a committee, but I think in the first week of the parliament, if you're about to turn up with a bill, you might have mentioned it during the election campaign.
"If you intend to bring something to this parliament you should have the courage to go to the election and talk about it. You should be proud of what you want to do when you come to this place."
However, Mr Rattenbury did not support to bring forward a debate on a motion from the Canberra Liberals calling for a select committee on privileges to be established to investigate whether standing orders had been breached. He said this was because it was a political matter.
"That is a political discussion, that is not a matter of privileges is being asserted today," he said.
Opposition whip Nicole Lawder attempted to suspend standing orders to bring forward debate on her motion but was unsuccessful.
The Canberra Liberals have alleged Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith breached standing orders after she told attendees at the recent national Labor conference the bill was able to be done "much more quickly" as it was brought forward by Labor backbencher Michael Pettersson.
"We took it to the election quietly. But we could point to our platform and say, 'It's in there', so that after the election we were able to work on it quickly," she reportedly told the conference.
"It was done through a private member's bill which means it could be done much more quickly.
"If the government had tried to do it, I tell you it would have taken two years to develop the legislation ... and we would have had to deal with all this risk aversion and complexity."
Ms Stephen-Smith has also argued the government was upfront about its drug decriminalisation policy but "didn't go around shouting it from the rooftops" as she said this was not good for those who use drugs.
Mr Pettersson's released an exposure draft of the bill in December 2020, just weeks after the ACT election, and it was introduced in the first sitting week of 2021. It was not introduced in the first week of the term.
The laws passed last year and will take effect in late October.
He strongly defended the introduction of the bill in the Assembly on Thursday afternoon. He pointed to the fact he introduced a motion in the Assembly in August 2020 calling for an investigation into whether a simple offence notice should be applied to drug possession.
Mr Pettersson's motion was supported by all members, including the Canberra Liberals.
"That was two months before the ACT election. Now for anyone to say that this was not in the middle of an election campaign is being disingenuous," he said.
"Every single motion in this place was shaping up towards that election campaign. Caretaker started in three weeks time."
Mr Pettersson hit out at the Liberals for bringing forward the motion on international overdose awareness day.
"This is a response to the right wing media cycle. Now the Canberra Liberals only care about drug law reform when it pops up in right wing newspapers in this country," he said.
The Greens supported the drug decriminalisation bill.
