Page 3357 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 18 September 1990
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was clearly established, and, Mr Speaker, it is a good precedent. It is a good precedent for any parliament, but particularly for a small Assembly such as this - an Assembly where there are only 17 members in a small community and where the scrutiny of the Executive action is properly before all members. I would suggest it is similar to the process in the Senate, where all senators have the opportunity to take part in one of the various estimates committees.
It is a good precedent. It is a precedent that we ought to follow. But, no, this Government is not prepared to do this. It is not prepared to give all members of the Assembly the opportunity to serve on the Estimates Committee. It wants a committee of five, which, no doubt, will have three members of the Government, one member of the Labor Party - if we are lucky - and one independent. This means that one of the independent members sitting on the crossbenches will not get an opportunity.
Mr Wood: Two members of the Labor Party.
MR CONNOLLY: We would hope for two members of the Labor Party, but no doubt the Government will not be so generous. So, one of the two non-Labor Party members will simply not get a chance to take part in the Estimates Committee and not get a chance to put the Government's proposals for the budget under scrutiny.
Mr Speaker, this is a particular area where the Government ought to have no fear of all members of the Assembly sitting on the Estimates Committee, because at the end of the day the budget is not going to be refused by the Opposition. This Opposition, in clear Labor Party principle, will not oppose a budget. The Government has nothing to fear from allowing all members of the Opposition, and all independent members, and all members who are its own supporters, to serve on this committee. No adverse reflection on its budgetary decisions is going to be reflected in a vote of this house on the budget. It ought to have the guts to stand by the precedent established last year, particularly when it was established on the motion of the Chief Minister. It is to the shame of the Chief Minister that he is not prepared, as Chief Minister, to subject himself to the same scrutiny that he enthusiastically subjected Ms Follett to when he was Leader of the Opposition.
Mr Humphries was making some comments about establishing precedents - and what is good for one is good for the other - but it reflects no credit on Mr Kaine, or any other member of the Government frontbench, that they are not prepared to accept the same degree of scrutiny that the members of the minority Labor Government were prepared to subject themselves to last year. This would be the case regardless of the question of who had moved last year that all members should take part in the Estimates Committee, but it is doubly damning and doubly shameful that last year
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