Page 4589 - Week 16 - Tuesday, 27 November 1990
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
over a week to even write the letter". That is because of the shillyshallying and the go-slow tactics that we seem to have opposite. The Chief Minister announced that he has not even received your letter yet, Mr Speaker. I am not sure when your letter was written; but, again, it was Wednesday of last week when this matter was raised and undertakings were given by both you and the Chief Minister that the advice would be sought.
Mr Speaker, we are pleased that the advice is being sought, but it is an urgent matter. It is a perfectly reasonable thing to ask both the Commonwealth and Mr Jackson of counsel to provide this advice before this place finishes its sittings. Advice in due course, the fullness of time and in all reasonable haste, as the Government is talking about, may well mean advice well into next year when the vital issues before this Assembly have gone.
MR SPEAKER: I would just like to inform the Assembly a little further on the issue of what was in fact presented by me to the Chief Minister. It is a rather large submission. It covers probably eight sections and those sections contain, for example, second reading speeches from both the Senate and the House of Representatives, the two legal opinions and other appropriate documentation. It took my staff until mid-Friday afternoon to present that to the Chief Minister's staff. So it did take us two days to get that together.
The situation is that that has been presented to the Chief Minister's private secretary, and I dare say that that is being worked upon with some urgency at this time. But, as I say, it took us a day and a half, so to speak, to get the brief together. It does take time; it is not just the matter of a letter - the covering letter takes little time but getting the full brief together took the time. I would just like to leave it at that.
MR HUMPHRIES (Minister for Health, Education and the Arts) (3.33): Mr Speaker, I cannot support this motion. Mr Berry says that it is important to impose this deadline in order to prevent these issues running over. Mr Berry seems to believe that he has some great triumph looming for himself by having these matters dealt with quickly. I have to assure Mr Berry that he is as deluded on this matter as he is on many other matters that he raises in this place.
I think that the basic inappropriateness of the motion is reflected by the fact that it has "the Assembly" calling "for the provision of ... legal advice in respect of private members' Bills". It is not the Assembly, of course, that has commissioned these advices; it is the Chief Minister and the Attorney-General that have sought these advices from the Commonwealth Attorney-General and Mr Jackson of queen's counsel respectively. It is rather inappropriate to have that kind of motion dealing with that relationship between those gentlemen moved and passed at this stage of this debate.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .