Page 3226 - Week 11 - Thursday, 13 September 1990
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creates a very strict obligation on a government to be responsible for all enactments, votes, resolutions or questions, the object of which is to dispose of or charge any public money. We do not know the reasoning behind those drafting instructions, or the law, but it may have been the size of this chamber. The very clear intention of the Federal Government was to ensure that there was a clear delineation between a government and an opposition in a small chamber like this. This creates a very clear delineation. By bringing in these Bills that have these effects of charging public moneys, the Opposition is seeking to cloud the differentiation between government and opposition.
During the pre-self-government debates many of us debated this very issue over this chamber. I clearly recall the Chief Minister talking about the type of chamber that we are and whether we needed that delineation. Be that as it may, I would not be surprised if some of the reasoning behind the very strict ruling and the very tight drafting of section 65 was to make sure that the opposition could not become the government by stealth, and you could quite easily do that by bringing in a great number of private members' Bills.
I congratulate the Opposition for being able to get some things drafted. It is a fantastic job on their part. I do not agree with some of the provisions in the Human Rights Bill, and Mr Connolly clearly foreshadowed that. There is one provision, for example, that makes it unlawful for an education authority to discriminate against a person by expelling the student - and that is in very bald terms. There are many provisions in the Bill that I could debate here. Issues of this kind require the most careful consideration. We are doing it and we will have the best human rights legislation, the latest in the country, and you well know it. There is a mass of law reform issues facing the Territory. I believe you brought the Human Rights Bill and the rental bond Bill in as a point scoring exercise, possibly to get at me personally or, at least, at the Government. I think that is clear from the Leader of the Opposition's introductory comments this morning when she went straight for my jugular when the Speaker gave his unexpected ruling.
I do say, through you, Mr Speaker - and I trust the people who are recording today's events will say - that until you as an opposition support the views advanced by the Chief Minister and until you recognise that in debates recently I have supported the task of the Administration and Procedures Committee of this Assembly of getting on with trying to have section 65 amended, you will create this disturbance, for your own camouflaged reasons, every time you introduce a Bill that has an effect on public moneys, as this Bill does in my opinion.
Mr Speaker, I repeat my comments: if you wish me to proceed with the motion that this Bill is out of order and
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