Page 3734 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 23 November 2022
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(ii) the final report states: ‘The Steering Committee made recommendations for improvement throughout the Review, to influence change across the child protection system that will provide better outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children today and into the future’; and
(iii) in July this year the Our Booris, Our Way Implementation Oversight Committee stated that committee members were ‘tired and frustrated by the lack of progress and feel disappointed that ... only one recommendation [of 28] has been fully implemented’; and
(2) calls on the ACT Government to recommit fully to the reforms necessary to improve outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people within the Territory’s child protection and criminal justice systems and in other important areas.”.
I commend this amendment to the Assembly.
Mr Gentleman: Mr Deputy Speaker, I raise a point of order. With regard to the amendment that Mrs Kikkert just moved, I draw your attention to standing order 140, “Relevancy of amendment” and the commentary at paragraph 10.80 of the new Companion to the Standing Orders. Both make it clear that an amendment can be used to change the details of a proposition before the Assembly but not the proposition itself.
Dr Paterson’s excellent motion is about the Uluru Statement from the Heart and how the ACT can support this. Mrs Kikkert’s motion goes nowhere this. Mrs Kikkert, of course, is free to lodge the content of her amendment as a motion and have it debated perhaps next week. If she does, we will debate it. However, she cannot use her amendment to completely change the intent of the motion moved by Dr Paterson.
I would have thought that, on an issue such as the Uluru Statement from the Heart, we would have had unanimous support. If the opposition do not support the statement, they should say so. But you cannot use an amendment that is out of order to hide the Canberra Liberals’ opposition to the Uluru statement. Mr Deputy Speaker, I ask that you rule it out of order.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr Gentleman. Mr Hanson?
Mr Hanson: Mr Deputy Speaker, I must say that I am a bit surprised by this, because it is the form of this place, and has been for quite a while, that so often the opposition will come in with a motion and it gets completely rewritten by the government. It is not unusual that we will be calling for various things in this place and the government will move an amendment that replaces all after paragraph one and completely rewrites it—not just the “notes” but also the “calls on”.
If we are to accept this point of order today then we will be expecting this precedent to be maintained, and forever in this place we will no longer accept those rewrites of opposition motions from those opposite. We will only be allowed to, under the standing orders, from what you are saying here, have some little technical rewrites and some details that change, but if you want to make any substantive changes to our
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