Page 3736 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 17 October 1990
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Assembly standing order 241 provides:
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and documents presented to and proceedings and reports of the committee shall be strictly confidential and shall not be published or divulged by any member of the committee or any other person, until the report of the committee has been presented to the Assembly: Provided always that the publication or divulging of any evidence, documents, proceedings or report confidentially to any person or persons by the committee or by any member of the committee for the execution of any clerical work or printing, or to the Speaker, a Member, or, if it be necessary, in the course of their duties, to the Clerk or other officers of the Assembly, shall not be deemed to be a breach of this standing order.
Under section 24 of the Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Act, the Assembly and its members and committees have the same powers, including privileges and immunities, as those for the time being held by the House of Representatives and its members and committees. Publications of draft reports of committees before their presentation to the House of Representatives have been pursued as matters of contempt. I must point out that, as Speaker, I am not required to judge whether there has been a breach of privilege or a contempt of the Assembly. I can only judge whether the matter merits precedence.
Having considered the matter presented to me, I am prepared to allow precedence to a motion of referral. However, I wish to draw the attention of the Assembly to the consequences of certain provisions of the standing orders in this instance. Standing order 71 makes provision for the member who raised a matter of privilege to move a motion without notice forthwith to refer the matter to the Standing Committee on Administration and Procedures. I draw the Assembly's attention to the fact that the membership of that committee is made up of me, as Speaker, and Mr Berry, Mrs Nolan and Mr Jensen.
In the House of Representatives it is the practice that a member, on being elected Speaker, withdraws from the Privileges Committee. Also, in this case, the two members who raised the matter are both members of the Administration and Procedures Committee and the Standing Committee on Planning, Development and Infrastructure. The third member of the planning committee, Mr Berry, is also a member of the Administration and Procedures Committee.
In view of these unusual circumstances, it may not be appropriate that the matter be referred to the Administration and Procedures Committee. A more preferable course could be, if the Assembly so wishes, for it to be referred to a select committee that it established to investigate and report on this matter. I therefore suggest that, as members may wish to consider the questions I have
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