Page 2839 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 15 August 1990
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read the way they ought to have been read in the first place.
Mr Speaker, I turn to page 549 of House of Representatives Practice. I think that clearly sets out the tradition of the financial initiative of the Crown where it says:
A private Member may not initiate a bill imposing or varying a tax or requiring the appropriation of revenue or moneys as this would be contrary to the constitutional and parliamentary principle of the financial initiative of the Crown, that is, that no public charge can be incurred except on the initiative of the Government.
The Labor Opposition did not set out to impose any charges. That initiative was clearly left to the Government. The Labor Opposition set out to make it unlawful to close schools or the hospital. What the Government would do in relation to the funding of those facilities when they remain open would be a political question for the Government to address. It has tried to turn this around, but it has failed. It has been exposed.
Mr Collaery: You are tedious and repetitious.
MR BERRY: If I were you, I would be getting twitchy too, Mr Collaery, because you are the one who has tried to distort the facts. We have set out to ensure that private members can move worthwhile private members' Bills in this Assembly and that they can do it very clearly in accordance with the standing orders. With my motion we have set out to ensure that there can be no further confusion on the matter. Mr Speaker, the Australian Constitution bears me out in relation to the motion that I have proposed. It reads:
A vote, resolution, or proposed law for the appropriation of revenue or moneys shall not be passed unless the purpose of the appropriation has in the same session been recommended by message of the Governor-General to the House in which the proposal originated.
The first words are the important ones - "A vote, resolution, or proposed law for the appropriation of revenue or moneys shall not be passed". We did not set out to appropriate moneys. What we have set out to do - I will repeat it in case it was not clear to Mr Collaery - is to make it unlawful for the Government to close schools, the hospital or the Ainslie Transfer Station. What we wanted to do - we will do it anyway - is put the finger on those government members who ratted on their electoral promises and on previous public positions in relation to those facilities. How those people stand on those particular issues would have been on record in this place.
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