Page 1948 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 24 October 1989
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Ms Follett: Because they have already passed it.
MR HUMPHRIES: No, they have not already passed it. You are wrong in that respect. I suggest you check your information. The draft forward program made available in the Senate is not necessarily merely information about Bills passed already in the House of Representatives. That is not the case. I suggest the Chief Minister check her facts before blurting out something different when she gets up to speak on this matter.
Information provided in the draft forward program, as it is entitled in the Senate, is information about Bills which are either introduced in the House of Representatives or yet to be introduced. This program, Mr Speaker, published on 22 September by Senator Robert Ray, Manager of Government Business in the Senate, is a good example. It contains a list week by week, right up until December, of the titles of legislation the Government plans to introduce into the chamber.
Mr Berry: It is already passed.
MR HUMPHRIES: No, it is not already passed, Mr Health Minister. It is not already passed. You check the facts.
Mr Berry: It is the Senate. It has got to be before it gets to the Senate - nearly all of it.
MR HUMPHRIES: It is not the case. I suggest you check your facts. It is information in some cases which the Parliament has not yet considered in either house.
Look at the situation in Tasmania. In Tasmania, in the upper house, a legislative forecast is supplied to members of other parties on a regular basis. It is updated weekly and provides a list of Bills detailing what stage they have reached and what forthcoming legislation is in the pipeline. In particular, it includes Bills which are before Cabinet which have not been tabled. It is the same position, Mr Speaker, with respect to the Senate. In the upper house in Victoria, a letter is received by other parties.
Ms Follett: The upper house.
MR HUMPHRIES: Yes, the upper house - a house in which the Government has no majority, as it does not have here. In that place at the beginning of each legislative session the Cabinet secretary writes to the other parties outlining legislation that will be dealt with in that session. In other places programs of various kinds are provided, sometimes not including advance notice of legislation not yet introduced, but certainly providing, in some cases informally, information about upcoming legislation.
Why can we not have that formalised in this place? It happens elsewhere, and I am saying to you, irrespective of what happens in other parliaments where it does not occur,
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