Page 1628 - Week 06 - Thursday, 3 May 1990
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I believe this matter is of such importance that it should be referred to the Administration and Procedures Committee for consideration. In these early days of the Assembly, I believe it is appropriate that any possibility that a member has breached parliamentary privilege be fully investigated and the issue put to rest. This will ensure that the appropriate procedures are established as soon as any potential problem arises. It is for this reason that I have brought the matter to your attention, Mr Speaker, to seek your ruling in accordance with standing order 71.
It was my view, on hearing the recording of the interview and reading the transcript of that interview later, that a breach had taken place. I hope that, in the interests of the future conduct of the affairs of this Assembly and its members, this motion will have bipartisan support. However, one factor I should raise is that I am a member of the committee that will consider this problem if this motion is carried today. As I have raised this issue, it will be inappropriate for me to participate in deliberations of that committee when it considers that matter. I commend the motion to the house.
MR BERRY (4.09): Mr Speaker, the referral of any matter to the privileges committee, of course, is a serious matter. The Australian Labor Party was first notified of this reference to you this afternoon and, because of the seriousness of it, I think that these sorts of matters warrant close attention.
We thank you, Mr Speaker, for the short period to consider the matter before you made your decision in relation to the precedence of it but, as this is the first such privilege referral to the committee, the Labor Party seeks further time so that we can be satisfied, within our own minds at least, that this step is not being taken lightly, is not of a frivolous nature and is not as a result of a dispute within a political party or between former friends in relation to matters that really are not under consideration by this Assembly. I think that Government members should also take the same view, that those sorts of considerations ought not be part of the decision making process which leads to a matter of privilege being referred to the committee.
Our preliminary view, Mr Speaker, is not to oppose referral, but the notice was short and because the principle of referring privilege matters is very serious we are not yet convinced that this is the sort of matter that should find its way to the committee.
At first glimpse of the issue, I think there could be accusations that it is rather petty and we would want to be convinced that we were doing this Assembly a service in supporting it. Again we see the sorts of issues which I raised earlier emerging from Mr Collaery. The sort of anxiety which is behind this issue is more about a dispute
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