Page 3160 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 12 September 1990
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I have examined the matter carefully and have been unable to find a precedent directly relevant to what occurred, which was that the information was presented in the house, which is the superior body to the committee.
I have determined that the matter does not warrant precedence, and have advised the Leader of the Opposition to that effect.
In reaching my decision, I noted in recent years the support of Speakers of the House of Representatives to the view that all complaints of breach of privilege or contempt should be considered in the light of a general reluctance of parliaments to invoke their privilege and contempt processes in cases other than those where it is considered imperative to do so in order to protect the house, its members and its committees.
MS FOLLETT (Leader of the Opposition), by leave: I move:
That the matter of a possible breach of privilege concerning the divulging by Mr Collaery (Minister for Housing and Community Services) of unpublished evidence to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts be referred to the Standing Committee on Administration and Procedures.
Mr Speaker, in your response on this matter you have raised a couple of interesting issues, the first of which, of course, is the operation of our own standing orders, and in particular, standing order 241. As you have noted in your comments, that standing order states quite specifically that:
The evidence taken by any committee and documents presented to and proceedings and reports of the committee shall be strictly confidential and shall not be published or divulged by any member of the committee or by any other person ...
And it goes on.
I think the difficulty that we are faced with here is that the matter was, in fact, raised by the current Attorney-General and raised within this chamber. I do not believe that there is anything in that standing order that allows for this situation. It may well be that perhaps we need to amend the standing order; but I do not think, at least on the face of it, that the standing order in any way permits the activities that took place on 16 August this year. I think this is another area where we have to look at the operations of committees and in what regard this Assembly holds those committees. I take the work of committees very seriously; I also take evidence presented to committees very seriously.
It is a fact, of course, that the documents that Mr Collaery tabled in the Assembly on 16 August have
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