Page 5097 - Week 17 - Wednesday, 12 December 1990
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MR COLLAERY: I should not expect Mr Stevenson, then, I take it, to support the keep-the-peace Bill or the .05 reduction Bill. But that is only four such Bills in the time of our Government, in the past year, and that is not unusual by any standard in Australian parliaments. I remind members of the example set by the Federal Government during one sitting week in November this year, when 39 Bills were passed with approximately 40 minutes of debate being allowed on each Bill that affected our nation.
Also, during the nine-day sitting following the 24 March Federal election, the Federal Government guillotined 34 of 57 Bills introduced, which saw them passed in just two days. No-one can say that we have been unfair in pushing through much needed legislation. We have not used the guillotine - yet - nor have we gagged debate, or in any way sought to - - -
Mr Connolly: Big, tough leader of the house.
MR COLLAERY: You might be over here one day, Mr Connolly, and we will watch your voice change - because it will, when we get you.
Neither have we gagged debate or in any way sought to use our numerical advantage in this Assembly to abuse the parliamentary process. Our numbers are purely an accident of democratic process, and, if that seems to worry the Opposition, then I suggest that none of them understands simple mathematics. On the few occasions when legislation has needed to be passed in less than a week for an important reason, the Government has offered members briefings - and some of them comprehensive briefings - and given advance notice where this can be done; and I am speaking about only those four Bills.
Mr Speaker, let me assure members that the Alliance Government does not derive pleasure from seeing Bills passed in a hasty fashion. On the contrary, our Government is committed to meaningful consultation on all aspects of its public policy agenda. I point to the planning legislation package as a perfect example. This very important package of legislation, despite the Opposition's bleatings - particularly last night from Mr Moore - has been prepared over a very reasonable period of time, about 12 months now in fact. A number of us in this chamber are authors - and I do not exclude Mr Moore from this - if not of the words, then at least of the ideas in that very large package, a package of Bills unprecedented in this country. We have seen in the preparation of this legislation a most extensive program of public consultation - a consultative process that has been endorsed but at the same time impliedly criticised by some members of the Assembly.
We all know that the issues involved in that package are very complex and are such that many people in the community have a strongly held view on them. Time is needed to distil this all the way down through the community, and the
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