Page 170 - Week 02 - Thursday, 25 May 1989
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Mr Collaery in his address to this place, but I think the Rally might reconsider its position in the context of the remarks that I have just made.
I guess right now that Mr Kaine might be a little nervous about being supported on this matter by the Rally because of some of the naive remarks that we have just heard from Mr Collaery on the issue. In any event, we have to ensure in this place that there is lean and hungry government, to ensure that we are able to deal with the issues within the resources considered appropriate, but the Planning, Development and Infrastructure Policy Committee surely has a close relationship with the Conservation, Heritage and Environment Committee which is proposed.
I suggest to you that if you want it to be subordinate to it you should split those functions away from the areas which you in the Rally would know, even with your inexperienced party machine, depend on each other. You cannot split off heritage, environment and conservation matters from the development and planning issues. They cannot be split away. If you split them away, you end up with a subordination of those matters. The economic factors would tend in the normal course of events to present a risk of such a subordination occurring.
It seems at this stage that we need to ensure that good sense prevails in relation to this committee. From the Labor Government's point of view we need to ensure that these committees work well. Need I remind you that this is only a 17-member place, and I think it will be very hard to service all these committees.
A member: We will have a committee each.
MR BERRY: Yes, we will end up with a committee each. That is pretty democratic. In closing, Mr Speaker, I ask members to apply some common sense to this issue and to not overstretch the valuable resources of this Assembly. Let us make sure that we are able to service those very important issues within a very tight committee structure. Let us not expand it beyond the resource base.
MR DUBY (12.11): I would like to endorse the comments already made by the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Kaine. I think that in this day and age there is a public perception in the community the environment, heritage and conservation are important, vital issues and should be looked at differently and independently from matters relating to planning.
The community is acutely aware of the importance of environment and would be disappointed with this Assembly if a standing committee of this nature was not established. However, I would like to move the following amendment to the motion:
Paragraph (2), omit "3", substitute "4".
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