Page 897 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 27 March 1990
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seven members. That might be the ideal working number if we had an Assembly which had perhaps five times the membership that it currently has but, of course, that is not the way of the world.
What does happen, as I said, is that in effect we only have 12 members of this Assembly who are eligible to become members of committees. Three is the ideal practical number because it recognises that there is a certain workload. If you increase the size of the committees to larger than three it means that some members have to be members of two or perhaps even three standing committees and select committees and, frankly, the workload I know is just far too much for anyone to be able to adequately perform their duties as required.
The committee report recognises the need for Mr Moore to be included on a standing committee, the Committee on Conservation, Heritage and Environment. I applaud that. It recognises the need for Mr Moore to be included on that committee, but does not at the same time exclude a member of the Labor Party, the formal official Opposition in this Assembly. I think that would be a travesty if the situation was that Mr Moore went on at the expense of a member of the formal Opposition, the Labor Party.
There is one thing I do wish to raise, though, Mr Speaker, and it is that having been involved with the committee structures and with the level of workload that we do have, I must admit that I have grave concerns that there have been no increases in resources recommended by this committee.
Dr Kinloch: Hear. Hear.
MR DUBY: I know we are living in stringent, hard times and it is very difficult to obtain funds for a number of issues, but sometimes I wonder whether this cutting back on resources to be provided to the committee system is really a false economy. For the record I think we should show that we currently only have one senior secretary of committees, three committee secretaries, three research officers and two administration staff to cater for, I believe, in the order of five current standing committees, plus, of course, the whole range of select committees. I am not too sure of the number, to be honest, because I have not been involved with them now for some months, but I do know that for a while there we had an absolute plethora of things being referred to committees and unusual and often unrealistic reporting dates were being asked for.
I am pleased to see that the committee has at least recognised that there is a definite need for a fourth committee secretary position but, of course, they have also recommended that that position be found by cutting back the research officers from three to two. I would need to be convinced, I think. Perhaps it is a false economy, given the undoubted workload that these committee staff do
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