Page 1956 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 24 October 1989
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party, of course". I went up to a third and a fourth and a fifth and they all came up with the same answer.
It is clear, Mr Speaker, that Sir Robert Sparkes is alive and well in this city in the form of Chris Donohue. Mr Donohue, of course, to those of us who take an interest in ACT politics, is the manipulator, controller and enforcer of the Residents Rally party, and of course Mr Moore will bear me out in relation to this particular issue because Mr Moore has suffered at the hands of Canberra's Sir Robert Sparkes.
Mr Moore had the mockers put on him by Sir Robert Sparkes of the ACT. When Sir Robert Sparkes spoke, Mr Moore got the shove from the Residents Rally party. It is quite clear that the Residents Rally party ruthlessly applies the gag to party discussions to deny the democratic rights and freedoms of individual members, a practice which would never be observed in either the Liberal Party, one of the democratic institutions, or the Australian Labor Party. But here we have the Residents Rally party, which comes in here sanctimoniously and seeks to pass judgment on other parties, their backgrounds and their century-old traditions, while at the same time going through some pubescent phase of development where irrational behaviour can be explained by their relative youth. But, of course, with that irrational behaviour of this emerging political party, we also see the ruthlessness of the old aged manipulators of that particular party.
So when they come into this chamber, Mr Speaker, and sanctimoniously suggest that they are being denied the right to look at legislation, then we must consider very carefully the background to their propositions. The procedure in relation to legislation in this chamber, Mr Speaker, is that it is introduced after a briefing session each Monday between the Government and the leaders of the parties, at which the legislation to be introduced is outlined to the leaders of the parties.
That situation has changed in the last couple of weeks, Mr Speaker, when it was decided, after consultation and at the request of the members, that instead of having individual briefings we would have a group meeting of all members. The first of those group meetings was held in the Cabinet room last evening. All members were present and the week's program and legislation to be introduced in this coming week were indicated to all the members who were there.
Now let us look at the program. There are two Bills to be introduced this week. They will both be introduced on Thursday. The names of them were indicated to all members on a sheet of paper last night in the way that Mr Humphries sees as being desirable. They will be introduced on Thursday and there will be a minimum period of seven days after that before those Bills are then debated here in this chamber, unless, of course, the members opposite agree to their being introduced earlier than that. There have been
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