Page 667 - Week 02 - Thursday, 21 February 1991
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MR KAINE: No, what I am saying is that he has two different sets of values - one when it is him setting the rules and another when the Government is setting the rules.
MR SPEAKER: I accept that explanation of the words as used, Mr Berry.
MR KAINE: It is clearly true that he has two sets of values, and I for one will not go along with any proposal to establish a committee whereby Mr Berry determines who can and cannot sit as chairperson of it. So, clause (6) of the amendment is totally unacceptable; clause (2) is totally unacceptable; and clause (1) is totally unacceptable because we do not need a select committee - in no way do we need it.
If Mr Berry merely adopts the motion that Mr Collaery has put forward, the seven members will include him. They will be Dr Kinloch, Mrs Grassby, Mr Moore, Mrs Nolan, Mr Berry, Mr Stefaniak and Mr Jensen. I submit that, if we went ahead with his amendment, it would be the same seven members who would sit on it. So it is a farce and a charade to suggest that we need a select committee to appoint the same seven members to do the same job. It is totally unacceptable and totally unnecessary. It will not get my support.
MR MOORE (6.14): Mr Speaker, this is a very disappointing afternoon, considering the debate that we had this morning.
Mr Kaine: You disappoint me constantly, Michael.
MR SPEAKER: Order!
MR MOORE: I am pleased that I constantly disappoint the Chief Minister. It is disappointing because it is not just this particular committee that is at stake here. I will argue against the motion in a minute, but what we have is a situation where people are not prepared to compromise. I speak as an outsider looking in. I make it quite clear that, when I was approached about this motion for the matter also to go before the Conservation, Heritage and Environment Committee, I said that provided people were in agreement with it I would be prepared to support it. It is quite clear that this motion is still unacceptable to the Labor Party - and there are good reasons why it would be unacceptable, as I see it.
To start off with, it seems absolutely pointless to have seven members working on a project like this. It is difficult enough to get three members together for a hearing or for a meeting. To get seven members together and then to report by 18 April would be an almost impossible task. It would be a very difficult task indeed. The logical way to go, as far as I am concerned, is to suspend standing orders, in the way that Mr Berry has suggested, and to appoint three members for such a
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