Page 3128 - Week 15 - Thursday, 14 December 1989
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The Government is committed to a well run and stable government. It has the numbers to ensure that it is the Government and not the opposition that controls the Assembly. However, Mr Speaker, let me say that it will be up to the opposition to decide whether it wants to cooperate in the operation of an Assembly run in an orderly fashion for the benefit of the residents of the ACT.
The need by the Government to have continually to use its numbers to prevent disruption of government business is not in anyone's interests. Good government for the people of the ACT depends on a strong opposition. However, there is a difference between a strong opposition and an opposition that seeks to be disruptive all the time. We are not prepared to allow that to happen today.
I commend the motion to the house.
MR WHALAN (10.34): Mr Speaker, we naturally oppose this particular motion. This is, in fact, denying a right which currently exists to members of this Assembly. The whole progress of development in society is for rights to accumulate, and it is a tragic day when a right is destroyed or a right is denied. I hope that when you realise this, Mr Speaker, you will support us when we vote against this particular proposal today.
I cannot understand the motivation of the Government in relation to this. We saw froth and bubble and huff and puff from the previous speaker. There was cartoon called "Wally and the Major", and it was just that huff and puff that we have seen from the Major. It is just so clear a presentation of the man's insecurity that, even with the numbers - as he so clearly said, "We have got the numbers" - he has got to deny us rights in order to be in some way effective and in order to feel secure.
We have already seen secrecy. Yesterday, when Robyn Nolan and Norman Jensen came down to see the opposition to tell us what they were going to do in the Assembly today, they were not in a position to tell us. They were not in a position to tell us what the Government's intentions were. If they were in a position to tell us, they deliberately denied us the information. We had no idea of what was going to happen today. Contrast that with the situation that prevailed previously. When we were in government we consulted every day on the Assembly's business with the then opposition. Now a new veil of secrecy has been thrown over the operation of this Assembly. I asked Robyn Nolan three times whether the Government was going to allow the opposition to ask questions.
Mr Jensen: On a point of order, Mr Speaker; I seem to recall that at the last sitting you reminded the member opposite about the use of Christian names within the Assembly.
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