Page 884 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 27 March 1990
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Ms Follett said, it is not impossible for non-lawyers to participate in and develop the law of the country, it is still the case that there are particular advantages in having lawyers. I am told that there are a number of instances where the unavailability of lawyers made for interesting scenarios. I seem to recall the story that an early Attorney-General of the Commonwealth did not have any legal qualifications. I think it was an early Labor government in which there were no lawyers - deja vu one might say - and Billy Hughes was selected as the only person who would serve as Attorney-General. Consequently, while he was Attorney-General he was persuaded to undertake a law degree in order to bone up on the requirements of the law.
I am also told - and Mr Wood might be able to verify this - that there was a time when the Queensland Attorney-General was a surveyor and the Minister for Lands was a lawyer! Well, we have not quite got into that fix as yet but the presence of legal - - -
Mr Collaery: The Attorney-General in Victoria is a layman now.
MR HUMPHRIES: Is he? Oh well, these things befall even the best of parliaments, Mr Collaery.
Mrs Nolan: I would not say there was anything very good about the Victorian Parliament.
MR HUMPHRIES: Perhaps not. Perhaps Mrs Nolan has a point, but we will not debate the Victorian Parliament; that is the other Cain Government which we will put to one side for the moment. The new Kaine Government is doing rather better than that.
I want to respond to a couple of comments made by Ms Follett. (Extension of time granted) She said that committees were places where members met in camera and there was no capacity for non-members to sit with committees - obviously not on them, but with them. My colleague, Mr Duby, refers me to standing order 234 which says, and I quote:
Members of the Assembly may be present when a committee is examining witnesses, but shall withdraw if requested by the Presiding Member or any member of the committee, and shall always withdraw when the Committee is deliberating.
That is not a terribly onerous burden in my view, Mr Speaker; it is one that we can all comply with fairly happily. I doubt that any member of this Assembly, much less a chairman of a committee, would be churlish enough to ask someone to leave a committee meeting. After all, generally speaking, the parties will have representation on those committees anyway.
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