Page 3393 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 17 September 1991
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MR MOORE (5.18): What Mr Jensen has suggested puts into effect what I was trying to achieve and what I would have achieved in a different way and in a more appropriate way. In Mr Connolly's very persuasive argument he drew attention to the Subordinate Laws Act that we debated last year. That does turn the onus back onto the Government to carry the debate through if a motion for disallowance is moved. I do not think it is quite as strong as what I had proposed; nevertheless, I think it is acceptable. It means that the Assembly as a whole takes the responsibility for this.
One thing that I do want to take issue on, and it comes up here in particular, is the notion that Mr Duby has that we should let the experts decide. If we are always going to let the experts decide, we will form a sort of academic oligarchy for a government. I guess that that is what Mr Duby would run. He would always allow his department to tell him, because they are the experts. His department would tell him what they want and what to do.
That is the sort of argument he put and that is the sort of level on which Mr Duby operates; but it is something we will not have to put up with for too many more months. The reality is that a democracy works in a certain way. We as an Assembly, with the responsibility we have as the elected representatives of people, need to take into account the recommendations of experts and the range of experts. It seems to me, Mr Duby, through you, Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, that, for every expert we can find on one issue, almost invariably we can find one that has the opposite point of view.
The person who is most effective in finding experts with the opposite point of view, as a rule, is Dennis Stevenson, who seems to search the world. He can always find somebody with a PhD who will advocate whatever it is that he is pushing.
Mr Kaine: Lawyers usually can. We have three or four lawyers here. They all have a different view on everything.
MR MOORE: Exactly. The Leader of the Opposition interjects that we have three or four lawyers here. They can always provide expertise in their points of view, but almost invariably there are four different points of view. The notion of accepting what the experts say would certainly remove us from the responsibility accepted by those of us who were elected to this parliament on a serious footing. We took the responsibility seriously, unlike you, Mr Duby.
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