Page 677 - Week 02 - Thursday, 21 February 1991
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Mr Jensen: Issues raised in that report go back to your time.
MR SPEAKER: Order, Mr Jensen!
MS FOLLETT: Mr Speaker, I do apologise for that irrelevance, but Mr Jensen's continual interjections really do goad me into responding from time to time. I know that I should not allow him to.
I return to the subject of the draft planning and land use legislation. Mr Speaker, I think it is extremely remiss of the Government to attempt to constrain the Assembly in the way that it has by specifying the membership of the committee to look at this legislation. It is particularly remiss of them to completely deny members who are not on those two committees any opportunity of becoming members of those committees. That is not in the spirit of the committee structure of this Assembly, and I do not believe that it is in the spirit, either, of the standing orders which apply to committees of this Assembly.
I think, Mr Speaker, it is incumbent upon all of us to take a very close interest in this vital legislation, and all of us do. There is no doubt about that. This very debate indicates just what a high level of interest there is in the legislation. So I do not believe that it is appropriate, in any way, to try to constrain the debate in the way that the Government has, by using its numbers to pursue its own ends when any number of compromises have been offered to it.
It is very sad, Mr Speaker, that we have opposite 10 members of a government who, it appears, are completely unfamiliar with any form of conciliation, any form of negotiation, even on an issue that they know full well has the total interest and the vital interest of every member of this Assembly. They are willing simply to use their machinery tactics, their numbers, their bullying tactics, in order to specify which members must be on it.
Mr Kaine: According to your amendment, only five members can be on your select committee. How is that for exclusion?
MS FOLLETT: Mr Kaine has raised the question that my amendment seeks to reduce the number of members on the committee. Mr Speaker, the important point, which Mr Kaine appears to overlook, is that I have not said who those five members ought to be, and the Government has.
Mr Kaine: We know who the seven are if we just consolidate the two committees. They are already elected.
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