Page 879 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 27 March 1990
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commend the report to the Assembly and I look forward to seeing it implemented in the not too distant future.
MS FOLLETT (Leader of the Opposition) (4.03): I would like to exercise the quality of mercy and be very brief on this matter. It has been said before in this chamber that the committee system provides an opportunity for all Assembly members to participate in the detailed policy formulation and development, and on behalf of the Labor team in the Assembly I repeat what I have said many times before - that we stand ready to participate fully in the life and the work of Assembly committees. But committees must be an arm of the Assembly and not simply a rubber stamp for government decisions.
I know I have laboured that point previously, but I will make it again while we consider this very important report. It is extremely important that there is a clear separation of powers between the Executive Government and the Assembly and this separation must not only occur in fact but it must also be seen to occur - even by a casual observer, by people who are not informed on the full detail of how governments or assemblies operate.
The Labor Party will not be seen as part of a committee which appears to be an executive committee. I have said that before and I will say it again. The submission that we made to the committee clearly spells out what we see as the dividing line between executive and Assembly committees. We do want to participate fully in the Assembly committees, but I believe that it is appropriate that I say again at this stage that we will not serve on a committee which is chaired by an Executive Deputy who has portfolio responsibilities in that committee's area of responsibility. I have already made that point and I reiterate it.
With regard to the committee structure that has been proposed by the Standing Committee on Administration and Procedures, there are a couple of points which I would like to make. My party has found a couple of difficulties with the report which will not affect our participation but which I think are worth noting because they are rather strange.
Mr Speaker, I believe it is verging on the bizarre that all submissions to the committee which recommended the amalgamation of the Standing Committee on Conservation, Heritage and Environment and the Standing Committee on Planning, Development and Infrastructure were ignored. If you look at table 1 to which Mr Jensen has referred, you will see that the proposals by yourself, Mr Speaker, by the Opposition and by the Government all recommend that there be only one committee there. Yet the report that we have before us now recommends that there be two committees, that those two areas - planning, development and infrastructure and conservation, heritage and environment - remain separate. I find it rather strange that all the
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