Page 59 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 23 May 1989
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have been appropriate for the members of the Government on the other side, once they had been informed that the members opposite them had not been given this appropriate information, to defer debate until the next day of sitting so that this particular issue could have been considered properly and appropriately.
MR DUBY (4.28): It seems to me that the matters raised in these standing committees are merely nuts and bolts issues. There is no cause for debate on these issues. We are talking about a Committee on Social Policy which is going to have referred to it matters concerning community and health services, housing, welfare, education and social justice issues. Whatever else a committee on social policy could possibly look at, I do not know. I do not know what mental gymnastics Mr Jensen is going to go through tonight to see what he can add to this or how he can improve upon the terms of reference of this committee, but it is dealing with the nuts and bolts.
As Mr Kaine has said, if there are further items that need to be considered, let them be put in a further motion to the Assembly. I suggest we get on with them and set these committees up as soon as possible.
MR COLLAERY (4.29): I remind the Chief Minister of her historic statement in the opening of the Assembly when she said, "We will establish new consultative mechanisms and reinforce existing mechanisms".
The flavour of the Chief Minister's undertaking to this Assembly, as a minority leader - as the smallest minority leader, to our knowledge, in the British Commonwealth parliamentary system - was that she would establish more consultative systems. The implications of social policy development, the types of standing committee and the numbers required to usefully debate issues of profound social concern in this Territory, including homeless youth, which is of great concern to this Rally, and a number of other issues, mean that the composition of these committees is vital.
All through these railroaded documents we have the phrase "The committee shall consist of four members". It is not hard to work out what the tactics are in terms of numbers when one has regard to how this chamber stands at the moment. Regrettably, Mr Duby sees this as a nuts and bolts issue and as trite, and he feels that we should move on. The fact is that, once this is cemented in by motion and passage today, we shall have to take up the time of this Assembly again to get them amended. We shall create further destabilising issues in this Assembly.
We have seen, I suggest, total mismanagement of the business of this Assembly from the first moment that this minority Government has been given a chance to prove itself. We have seen tacticians here. I take it we are learners here. We are all in a nursery, and Mr Whalan is
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