Page 3208 - Week 11 - Thursday, 13 September 1990
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MR MOORE: In that case, I am delighted. It is quite possible then, Mr Kaine, that you ought to look very closely at this issue because you will be spending quite a lot of time in opposition and private members' business will be very important to you. I quite confidently predict this.
I would suggest, therefore, not only that you look at changing the standing orders but that we, as an Assembly, approach the Federal Government to get an amendment to section 65 of the self-government Act, in order to allow what is clearly its intent, that only a Minister ought be allowed to introduce a Bill the object of which is to spend money. A Bill that has as its consequence the effect that money needs to be spent is an entirely different thing. We must remember that if the Government does not want to spend that money it still has the prerogative, still has the numbers, to override such a Bill. For example, if you feel that it is inappropriate, you can override the section of the Bill that, in this particular case, would set up a human rights commission that would cost money.
Mr Collaery: This is gross naivety; this is absurd.
MR MOORE: I see Mr Collaery and Mr Duby there having a discussion, saying that this is gross naivety. As I say, for those two people who have a use-by date of early 1992 - - -
Mr Jensen: Come on; be original, Michael.
MR MOORE: Mr Jensen, of course, is in the same bed. I grant him his third of one per cent, although I would think that perhaps he does not warrant quite that much because Dr Kinloch and Mr Collaery will probably take the lion's share of the one per cent between them.
Obviously, this matter is going to be of no concern to them if they can manage to stay in government till then, which, of course, they will because it is out of self-interest that they remain in government and not out of community interest. Clearly, Mr Speaker, what we have here in the moving of this particular motion by Mr Collaery is not the simple issue that is being dealt with, but the ability of private members in a small parliament to make a major contribution to the community.
In this particular instance, by forcing this and by not looking for ways around it, the Government is forcing the matter of human rights to be delayed for in the order of six months when, in fact, we could have taken a relatively bipartisan approach to this particular issue. This is an issue which Mr Collaery claims again and again that he has been particularly concerned with and which I have believed that he is concerned with - unlike many other things that Mr Collaery says. The result of this is that we get a standard parliamentary political "them and us" approach, which could well have been avoided in these circumstances
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