Page 1250 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 23 August 1989
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members of the Rally because of some perception that they may be a threat or for reasons unknown. But there has been a very consistent attempt, and everyone knows, particularly the media, that at luncheons and dinner after dinner, where members of the Rally have been unable to respond, there have been personal attacks by this Deputy Chief Minister.
I went to great lengths last Sunday morning to get that on the air on the ABC and to ensure that we could come to the Assembly this week in a spirit of reformation. Now, sadly, we are at the same issue again. But I am not going to be my same self. I am simply going to read from the book. I hope the Chief Minister listens to this, because it may be a guide to her as to what she is going to do in the party room upstairs tonight.
I will read from House of Representatives Practice an excerpt from the 1976 report of the Royal Commission on Australian Government Administration which, the text I hold before me suggests, reflects the current position. Presumably my friend will want me to table the book but it is the only copy I have got, let me say in advance. The report states:
Ministerial responsibility to the Parliament is a matter of constitutional convention rather than law. It is not tied to any authoritative text, or amenable to judicial interpretation or resolution. Because of its conventional character, the principles and values on which it rests may undergo change, and their very status as conventions be placed in doubt. In recent times the vitality of some of the traditional conceptions of ministerial responsibility has been called into question, and there is a little evidence that a minister's responsibility is now seen as requiring him to bear the blame for all the faults and shortcomings of his public service subordinates, regardless of his own involvement, or to tender his resignation in every case where fault is found. The evidence tends to suggest rather that while ministers continue to be held accountable to Parliament in the sense of being obliged to answer to it when Parliament so demands, and to indicate corrective action if that is called for, they themselves are not held culpable - and in consequence bound to resign or suffer dismissal - unless the action which stands condemned was theirs, or taken on their direction, or was action with which they ought obviously to have been concerned.
So clearly, on that score, Mr Whalan's bacon is saved. But the royal commission goes on to say that there are still circumstances in which a Minister is expected to accept personal responsibility and to resign, or be dismissed. It says:
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