Page 2550 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 7 August 1991
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I was interested, though, Mr Speaker, to observe two reports, I think both on WIN television, both before and after the billboard was knocked down, in which a vox populi was conducted and the cameraman roamed around asking people in the Civic area what they thought. On the first occasion, before the billboard had been knocked down, I think six people were interviewed and five of the six said that they liked the billboard and wanted to see it retained. The sixth person expressed no view on the subject. A similar number of people were interviewed after the billboard had come down and all the people on that occasion expressed some regret that it had been knocked down.
So I think, Mr Speaker, that there is some role for asking ourselves whether people who make submissions to standing committees of this Assembly are necessarily, in all cases, spokespeople for all members of this community; whether in fact different views come out of such processes than actually is the representation of the view of the community. I do not say that WIN had any more right than the people who made submissions to the committee - perhaps they did not - but we ought not to assume that these processes invariably throw up the accurate view of the community.
Mr Wood: That is the same polling that you did at Weston Creek. That sounds about the same level.
MR HUMPHRIES: On the contrary, Mr Speaker. Mr Wood suggests that this is the same process as in Weston Creek. The people asked in that case were the people involved in the school community; the people who had a stake in the matter were all asked. Those who responded in this case were those who saw the ad in the newspaper and who felt strongly on the matter and wanted to make some submission to the committee.
So, we ought to be very careful before any of us come into this place and say, "Yes, we know what the community thinks. We have divined this through some extraordinary process of public consultation". It is always difficult to know what the community actually thinks and we ought to be very careful before we make any decisions about that. Of course, there is also a role for deciding what the community actually needs; what we actually think is the right thing to do on behalf of the community as well. Perhaps to follow too closely what the community wants is not entirely our role as members of this Assembly.
MR MOORE (4.18): Having heard Mr Humphries' speech on this matter, I feel that he has really just about done my tabling speech for the motion that is on the notice paper. I had hoped that we would get up today, but the Standing Committee on Administration and Procedures saw fit to put it after Dennis Stevenson's Bill and, of course, it did not get up today; but then, I had not gone to the trouble of informing the media that it would.
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