Page 2367 - Week 08 - Friday, 21 June 1991
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MS MAHER (9.09): Mr Deputy Speaker, I think that what has happened tonight is very sad. I think the Liberal Party have been very sad losers and their spitefulness is coming out. I think this puts the Liberal and Labor parties in the same bed. It is an occasion when they are working together. Just see what it does to both those parties.
If Mr Jensen's amendment fails to get up, which I presume it will, because the Labor and Liberal parties have the numbers together, I want it to be put on the record that if Mr Humphries does become Leader of the Opposition he, or the Liberal Party, does not represent me or speak on my behalf as a member of the Opposition.
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (9.10): Mr Deputy Speaker, I speak on the amendment. I rise to again nail down a legal doubt that was about to be cast on the office of Leader of the Opposition by Mr Collaery. Despite running a preliminary argument that there was no vacancy in the office and, therefore, your motion would be invalid, he then raised a very ingenious argument that subsection 18(2) of the self-government Act, the overriding Federal Act, in effect our constitution, would render your motion invalid.
I would have to express the view that subsection 18(2), which refers to the way in which questions arising at a meeting shall be put, must refer to the way in which the motion is dealt with, and the motion clearly will be dealt with in accordance with the standing orders and the self-government Act. That section of the self-government Act can in no way prevent this Assembly from, in effect, passing a standing order which says, as Dr Kinloch would have us say, that the position of Leader of the Opposition ought to be decided by the majority non-government party. I see no legal doubt surrounding the outcome of this vote.
MR DUBY (Leader of the Opposition) (9.11): Mr Deputy Speaker, this is a truly remarkable evening. What we are seeing here tonight is an absolute travesty of democracy and of justice.
Mr Berry: What, that we get a vote?
MR DUBY: That is exactly right. Mr Berry has hit the nail right on the head. He says, "We get a vote". The Labor Party gets a vote. What they have done is that they have cooked up a deal between themselves and the Liberal Party, who did not accept the majority will of non-government members of this Assembly that I should be elected as Leader of the Opposition.
Mr Berry: It is because you refused to do the job.
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