Page 386 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 21 February 1990
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peculiar. It calls on this Assembly to call on the Government to establish a select committee empowered to negotiate and finalise the arrangements whereby policing in the ACT is handed over to the ACT Government. I looked at my standing orders, and particularly at standing order 217, which says:
The Assembly may appoint select committees ...
It seems to me that if the Opposition were serious about establishing a select committee, it would not be calling on the Government to do that because the Government does not establish select committees. It is the Assembly that establishes them.
Mr Wood: We need its support, don't we?
MR HUMPHRIES: If you want our support you should move a motion. You have not moved such a motion. You have said, "This is your problem, you fix up a select committee". You have not provided any terms of reference, membership or a reporting date. You just want to throw up the issue, apparently for political kudos, so that you can say that you have done something about policing in the ACT. I do not think that this is a serious attempt to address the issue. I think it is really an attempt to say, "We are concerned about policing, but it is really the Government's problem". To some extent I share that view; it is the Government's problem. The Government has to sit down and make some hard decisions, and in particular, as Mr Collaery has indicated, to engage in some hard-nosed negotiations with the Federal Government.
The issues are complex. They are particularly sensitive in the area of financial contributions by the Commonwealth to our policing needs. We have a very delicate operation to perform here in negotiating an adequate police service for the ACT, and I really do not think that this motion is a contribution to securing such a service. Frankly, I would feel more confident that the Opposition was serious about the processes of committees in this Assembly if to date we had seen some serious attempt by members of the Opposition, with the exception of Mr Wood, to get involved in the process of committees.
Mr Moore: Oh, come on!
MR HUMPHRIES: I am referring, Mr Moore, to the four members sitting - - -
Mr Kaine: Mr Moore is a notable exception.
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Moore is a notable exception. I am referring to the four members who sit on his right.
Mr Wood: Would you like Mr Moore to get involved too?
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