Page 2437 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 7 August 1990
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minutes of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association say about that?
We are told that the minutes are yet to be confirmed. I put it to members of this house that leave ought not to be granted to Mr Speaker until we are satisfied that, if he is attending a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association meeting, he is doing it with the authority of the branch. If we are to do otherwise, we are to allow the Speaker to attend any function, anywhere, any time on his own mere whim, and that is not the role - - -
Mr Kaine: He may be in hospital somewhere for all I know and I am not going to refuse him leave if he is.
MR CONNOLLY: Of course, we would not refuse him leave if he was in hospital, but the best information we have been able to glean from the remarks of the Chief Minister is that he may be in Rarotonga attending a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association meeting. If the Speaker wished to obtain leave, he could have asked this Assembly. Mr Speaker has gone through an educational process, going from being a No Self Government member to an independent member and now to a, heaven forbid, Liberal member. One would have thought that in that process of political evolution - - -
Mr Humphries: I rise on a point of order, Mr Acting Speaker. Can I ask the member to resume his seat while the point of order is being made? The question of Mr Speaker's political affiliation is totally and absolutely irrelevant to this debate and I ask that Mr Connolly refrain from talking on that subject.
MR ACTING SPEAKER: I uphold your point of order, Mr Humphries. Stick to the point, Mr Connolly.
MR CONNOLLY: The relevance is, Mr Acting Speaker, that people who are active in political parties tend to learn to use telephones and even occasionally write letters to one another, and in sophisticated political parties and political times occasionally can use a fax machine. It would therefore seem that Mr Speaker had at least three options of communicating to this Assembly why leave is necessary. He could have telephoned; he could have faxed; he could have sent a message in a bottle, assuming that he is sitting on a tropical isle. There are a variety of means by which Mr Speaker, secluded as he is on this tropical isle, could have advised this Assembly of his whereabouts and himself requested leave of absence.
Mr Humphries: He did; that is what his staff do.
MR CONNOLLY: Did he? The Attorney-General moved leave of absence, but at no point in his remarks did I hear the Attorney-General saying he was doing so as a result of correspondence and a direct request from Mr Prowse. If there has been a direct request from Mr Prowse, I would be interested to hear it.
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