Page 4143 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 23 October 1991
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Lobbying is going on among various members about what will happen to this amendment Bill. It does happen that members are lobbied on the floor of this Assembly. But all too often the lobbying, if there is any, is done well before members come down to this Assembly and engage in what is laughingly called "debate". A debate should be a situation where every member is prepared to listen, to examine; to impartially examine what has been said; to look searchingly at the evidence presented by every member in this house. I suggest that that is the key to true government in Australia.
We should return to the situation where every member of parliament who is elected by constituents actually represents the constituents, actually has some conscience, rather than blindly doing as they are told by political parties set up outside the Constitution of Australia for no other reason than to control the votes of elected members of parliament. Members should represent the law and should represent their constituents. We have gone a long way in this country, but few people understand the true role of government.
I well understand why some people smile at this rather unusual idea, for many members perhaps. It is because we do not get taught our constitutional heritage in Australia. Our children are not being taught this. It is not being taught in our law schools. We have a situation that usually teaches legal positivism. That suggests that if a parliament so decrees they supposedly are sovereign and that is the way it will be. That simply is not correct and does not accord with the Constitution of Australia.
MR KAINE (Leader of the Opposition) (12.06): Mr Speaker, I think it is very sad that we have wasted over an hour of private members' business this morning debating this subject that should never have been brought to the house. What we are talking about here is the availability of resources to members of the Assembly. Why do we have to waste over an hour of private members' time? When you look at the business paper and the matters that are on there, Mr Collaery, I think, would assert that much of the business that he has put on there is important. We have wasted our time. We have talked about leaders of the opposition, party leaders, Westminster systems. They are all totally irrelevant to the argument. When you get down to it - - -
Mr Stevenson: Mr Humphries, I thought, spoke for some time on these principles.
MR SPEAKER: Order!
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