Page 2849 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 22 November 1989
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decisions made, but I do stress that the Rally looks forward to the time when this Government and governments to come are housed in more appropriate quarters.
Mr Speaker, I referred to you a question which I propose to ask you tomorrow. I will allude to it now. I note that the Law Society has complained to the Attorney-General about the $7.50 cost per page for the Hansard proof. The Law Society wrote to the Attorney-General in August seeking clarification of a number of points, one of which, of course, was the fact that these costs are passed onto clients and, in the case of the Legal Aid Office, passed back to us, the taxpayers. In many cases the funds are not recovered. At $7.50 a page, the society was asking whether the matter should, in effect, go out to private tender to see whether we could get some competitive costing.
As no doubt all members would agree, we are eternally grateful to the Commonwealth Reporting Service for the work it does for the Assembly, but at $7.50 a page it does raise a question about a large daily expenditure when the Assembly and its committees are operating. It is of interest to the Rally to determine the nature of our continuing expenditure, but I will not ask that question now.
MR HUMPHRIES (3.36), by leave: Mr Speaker, my views on accommodation for the Assembly are well known and I will not traverse them again today in this debate. I will say, however, that as a member of the Administration and Procedures Committee, I spent some time with my colleagues, Mr Jensen, Mr Wood and you, discussing the implications of the Assembly's budget and in particular assessing the appropriate bids to be made to the Government for the Assembly's running. It was then and remains now a matter of concern to me that the Assembly was not able to obtain appropriate expenditure.
One of the important things within that particular item of the budget is the committees of this Assembly. We are all quick to acknowledge that they do a terribly important job, but it has not been possible to obtain what I would consider to be a proper level of funding for them. We will not oppose this item - indeed, we cannot, because it has already been passed - because we believe it is important to get that amount approved in any case. However, I indicate that I hope the battles that will be fought in future over appropriate funding for the resources needed for this Assembly are not battles that go to the wire, that we have to fight down to the last square inch of committee turf or whatever.
I hope that we will end up with an appropriate result next year, and that will be a reflection of the needs of this Assembly and the importance of the work it does in the whole range of issues that come before this Assembly.
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