Page 883 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 27 March 1990
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There was a reference earlier - I think by Ms Follett - to some of the problems in developing those bipartisan views and in particular to the nature of an Assembly committee structure where members who were Executive Deputies sat on and chaired committees. I hear what she says, I can understand some level of concern, but I think that concern is a little poorly placed. I think that she would do well to reflect on the position of other parliaments. In other parliaments, of course, members do represent government parties; they do, generally speaking, take the chair as members of the Government - - -
Mr Wood: But not members of the Executive.
MR HUMPHRIES: Well, Mr Wood, the Executive Deputies are not members of the Executive. I want to make that perfectly clear; they are backbenchers, they are members of the Assembly who do not have an executive role, but who do participate fully in the functioning of the Assembly and who, in this sense, are deserving of the same treatment as backbenchers of other parliaments.
I do not think it is unprecedented for non-government members to chair committees of the Assembly or a parliament, even where the Government holds a clear majority of the members of that Parliament. Members of the Conservation, Heritage and Environment Committee will recall that when we visited Melbourne and spoke to the chairman of the Victorian equivalent of our Conservation, Heritage and Environment Committee, he was a member of the Liberal Party - presumably chosen because of a particular interest and expertise in the area of conservation and environment matters. I would hope that the same principle permeates this Assembly, and that if a person is eminently suitable to chair a committee on the basis of his or her expertise in an area, that person should chair that committee, irrespective of the party to which he or she belongs. I think that is probably a good way of describing what has occurred in the case of the HIV, Illegal Drugs and Prostitution Committee which Mr Moore chairs. I am not sure that he would call himself an expert in those areas - and perhaps he would not like to be so described - but he is certainly a person familiar with them and better suited than many to chair a committee of that kind.
In the time left to me, I want to say briefly that it is certainly the case that the creation of a committee which specifically deals with legal matters is probably a good thing. I am, of course, one of three lawyers in this place; I see there being no coincidence whatsoever in the fact that lawyers dominate Australian parliaments. This may be the only Parliament that they do not dominate, I do not know.
Mr Wood: That is to their detriment though.
MR HUMPHRIES: Well, Mr Wood makes terrible slurs on the legal profession; he had better be careful! Although, as
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