Page 2312 - Week 08 - Friday, 21 June 1991
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Naturally, the reports of our committees are important, and it is important that the new legislation require the Executive to respond to each committee report no more than 90 days after it has been tabled. The report should then be listed on the notice paper for debate within six sitting days of the tabling of the response from the Executive. The extent and nature of the debate would then be up to the Assembly. In closing, these few comments on our vision for the opportunities for a new and exciting form of Assembly operation are enunciated with the hope that this time we will get it right and that the Assembly will finally find its rightful place within the community.
DR KINLOCH (5.23): I would like to emulate the excellent example set by Trevor Kaine. He made a few comments and then came to one very useful conclusion, which was that these matters that we are now discussing should be referred to a select or standing committee or some kind of special committee. I agree with that. So, much that has been said, I do not propose to repeat. I especially thank my two colleagues to my left for the proposals they make. I also agree with Trevor Kaine about the need for reform of system as well as process. Both are obviously essential.
If there were such a committee - and I wonder whether it would be useful to have formalised that by August - I would like to propose the following matters for further discussion. I agree that we would not want to go back to or initiate some kind of mini-municipal government, but I wonder whether there is another alternative which is not this pocket handkerchief version of a Westminster parliamentary system but which is a large-scale, Canberra related, city council type of government covering the whole range of things that we now cover, but without - may I suggest - the parliamentary pretensions that we now have. I would like to see that reconsidered.
I would certainly like to see an effective, straightforward and easily understood electoral system. We are going to be looking at all that, so I will not go on with it here. But I would ask, in terms of both system and process, that we worry considerably about a 7:7:5 Hare-Clark break-up. I would like to worry greatly about that. I think it will create difficulties and anomalies. For another reason, as I will now explain, I would like to argue for at least a 7:7:7, three-area break-up. But why 21 altogether - 7:7:7? Later today we will be discussing committees; that is, our standing and select committees. Whether this is to be, in the long run, a Westminster style legislative assembly or a large-scale, unique city council, these standing and select committees are at the heart of our activity here.
The body of work at the moment is too great. I am not complaining about the amount of work. It is just that if one is on two, three, four, five or six committees - and I think Bill Wood and Robyn Nolan in particular have had that problem - there is just too much to cope with. I am sure Mrs Nolan would agree. The body of information is so great; the range of committee responsibilities is too great. We need more indians and fewer chiefs in connection with those committees. You need time to digest the range of material in front of you, and an increase of four members would go some way to solve this, as it would solve the problem of the difficulties of the 7:7:5 break-up.
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