Page 40 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 13 February 1990
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But what has happened? There is a committee of four. Three of them are Government members and of the three, two are resident in the Executive suite on the fifth floor.
Let me give you an example of one decision that was made the other day. A proposal came forward for the use of a computer on the first floor. Those three members combined to destroy that proposal and I will tell you why. It is because they know that they are going to the fifth floor and they will have the full resources of Government to rely upon.
Mr Kaine: The ones you had.
MR WHALAN: And that is where they will get them from. They will get them from the fifth floor. They will not have to rely on it and so they are using the numbers to deny resources to those of us who reside here on this floor of the chamber, knowing full well that they will get the same resources from Government on the fifth floor. So, Mr Speaker, I - - -
MR SPEAKER: Order, Mr Whalan! Your time is up.
MR HUMPHRIES (Minister for Health, Education and the Arts) (4.26): Mr Speaker, it was pretty rich sitting here listening to the Leader of the Opposition talk about the Westminster principle of the separation of powers in her matter of public importance. She lectured Mr Kaine and others on this side of the chamber on what that principle meant and how our so-called colleagues in Queensland - in the previous Queensland Government - used the concept of the separation of powers with other things and how we were not fully appraised of what it meant, et cetera. It was rich because the Opposition Leader herself had a fundamental misconception about that very notion. She was here lecturing us on something about which, frankly, she knew very little.
I would like to take the opportunity to explain clearly to the Leader of the Opposition and others on the other side of the chamber just what is meant by the separation of powers. She talks about the Westminster principle of the separation of powers. I think she is confusing the Westminster principle of the separation of powers with the United States principle of the separation of powers. They are two quite separate things.
In the United Kingdom there is a very strong tradition, reflected in the institutions of this country, that there should be a separation of powers between the executive and the judiciary. I do not believe anything has been said today in this debate which reflects on any breach of that particular principle by this Government or anybody else. So I assume that Ms Follett is not talking about that particular separation of powers. In the United States of America there is a further principle of the separation of powers which applies to the executive and to the
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