Page 3147 - Week 15 - Thursday, 14 December 1989
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Mr Whalan: I move dissent from your ruling, Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER: There is no provision to allow that, Mr Whalan. Please proceed, Mr Collaery.
MR COLLAERY: Thank you, Mr Speaker. When Mrs Grassby is ready - - -
Mrs Grassby: No, I do not want to listen to you, Bernard. I do not have to. Seeing you is enough.
MR COLLAERY: Mr Speaker, for the benefit of Mrs Grassby, who does not want to listen to me - - -
Mrs Grassby: That is right.
MR COLLAERY: I assume, Mr Speaker, that she has plugged her ears.
Mr Speaker, the committee structure is vital, as our colleague Mr Wood said in earlier debate. We did not agree with all of them, of course, but those parts of his comments were correct. The committee structure has a long historical basis, originally in the House of Commons, and so forth. The committees are known and recognised throughout our system of parliamentary democracy to be an efficient method of discussing matters of detail outside the Assembly, but they do not replicate the Assembly. They are not meant to reflect the Assembly necessarily.
There are standing orders that oblige us to reflect as far as possible political equations in a parliamentary assembly in a committee structure, but they are not meant to be a substitute method or forum of debate. In that respect, Mr Speaker, comments attributed to the former Chief Minister in today's Canberra Times, saying, firstly, that the alliance Government was showing an aversion to open, consultative government and had made a unilateral decision - that second point I will debate - are, of course, wide of the mark for that historical reason.
The Chief Minister should understand that we are not talking about a Labor Party branch in Belconnen or somewhere but we are talking about a parliamentary structure that has - - -
Ms Follett: Well, ask him.
MR COLLAERY: The former Chief Minister; sorry.
Mrs Grassby: Oh, God! He can't get anything right.
Ms Follett: He called himself "Chief Minister" in the press.
MR SPEAKER: Order!
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