Page 885 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 27 March 1990
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I also note Ms Follett's comments about allowing all parties or persons in the Assembly the access to committee membership, and she mentioned that it was very pleasing to see the Government expanding the membership of the Conservation, Heritage and Environment Committee to accommodate Mr Moore. However, I have to cast my mind back to the occasion a few months ago, where Ms Follett's Government was adamant that Mr Stevenson would not sit on a committee of the Assembly, and I really wonder how those two positions stand with each other. You either have it or you do not have it; you cannot have it both ways. Nonetheless, we will let bygones be bygones.
This is a good report, Mr Speaker. I think it will help us develop quickly and efficiently the priorities of our committee system. I believe that a number of the committee recommendations will be adopted, although by no means all. It is an indication of the separateness of the Executive from the committee system that we are able to do that very thing.
MR MOORE (4.25): Mr Speaker, I must say at the outset that I share a number of the concerns of the Leader of the Opposition. The first of those concerns is about what seemed to me the obvious amalgamation of the Conservation, Heritage and Environment Committee and the Planning, Development and Infrastructure Committee. I think the Leader of the Opposition has dealt adequately with that.
Mrs Nolan: What about the references?
MR MOORE: I believe that the references could still be handled adequately in the event of an amalgamation.
If we look at the number of meetings held by those committees on their new references over the past two or three months, we would see quite clearly that it is possible to integrate the two. However, I was not privy to the discussions within those committees. One of the main reasons for that is that, contrary to the interjections of Mr Jensen earlier, standing order 234 currently states:
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.
By and large, the Administration and Procedures Committee, by the nature of the committee, tends to spend most of its time in deliberations, I presume. Therefore, I consider that I have been excluded from that committee by that.
For that reason I would like to see change to that standing order 234 simply to remove that "shall always withdraw when the committee is deliberating". In that way, should the presiding member or any member of the committee decide that for a particular deliberation it was inappropriate - perhaps they might feel the committee was loaded or
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