Page 561 - Week 02 - Thursday, 21 February 1991
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MR STEVENSON, by leave: Mr Speaker, as an independent who would perhaps like to abolish the bias that is going on here today, and one who seeks some reason in this area, I think the clear issue that is coming out is that we are not suggesting, nor has it been suggested, that Mr Jensen has done anything that is not okay in his chairmanship. The point is that in any situation, particularly one as important as a parliament, justice should not only be done, but also be seen to be done. It is not by a lot of people.
I also agree with the point that someone in a position such as Mr Jensen's should not be chairman of that committee - other committees, fine; a member of the committee, surely; but not chairman. I see the situation as being easily seen to be open to debate. It is something that a lot of people would be prepared to have a talk about. Some might say, "I do not think there is any injustice there"; others would say, "Look, you can certainly see that someone is in a privileged position". Mr Jensen is; he is in a privileged position and he gets a lot of information that nobody else gets.
Mr Kaine: And he can make a better contribution because of it, if you would only listen.
MR STEVENSON: But he could make a contribution as a member, not as one having the senior responsibility within a committee. We have another problem here; we have an impasse. We have a situation where the Labor Party says that it will not do certain things because the Liberal Party or the Alliance Government says that it will not do certain things. This Assembly has gone on for a long time without compromise. Like Mr Moore, I would call for some compromise here. In this situation we should not have someone who is an Executive person involved in a committee chairmanship.
Mr Jensen: Not exactly. Read your definition of "Executive".
MR STEVENSON: We know what the title is, Mr Jensen. Mr Duby mentioned that members of the Assembly are perfectly entitled to be on committees. That is an interesting point. Unfortunately, there has been some political control of who are on committees. I, indeed, wanted to be on the Estimates Committee, but that was blocked by the Alliance. When the Labor Party had a minority Government, it actually said that anybody could be on the Estimates Committee. That was a precedent that was set; it was a good one; it was agreed to by different people; they, in fact, were on it. I wanted to be on the last one, not in the position that I could come along and listen to hearings and then when the important matters were discussed in confidence I would have to get out. Then you have no input, and no input in the final report. I might have liked to be on the committee; I could have put in a dissenting report perhaps, if there was something that I felt should be dissented from.
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