Page 4148 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 23 October 1991
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For a whole variety of reasons accountable to this Assembly, this Bill will not be supported. It will fail, and I accept the verdict of this Assembly. I have stood in court on many occasions and lost cases, occasionally where I thought it was an injustice. I believe that you will, in the majority today, do an injustice; but I can walk out of the court or tribunal or assembly and accept that, and I will. I will abide by it because, as you all well know, the act of throwing the Bill out today will prevent it from being reintroduced for a year.
Ms Follett: Six months.
MR COLLAERY: Six months. I commend some thought to that by the Liberal Party, particularly, because they gamble everything on being the majority number in this Assembly after the next election. Perhaps there could have been a little aforethought in these matters.
Mr Speaker, for your part, you are charged with assisting and developing the interests of members; but I do accept that our Assembly is very small and the role of a Speaker is perilous and extremely difficult. As you are well aware, Mr Speaker, you have a deliberative vote. You have a voting role in the Assembly and maybe one day, when we can recast the Federal legislation that governs us, we can make it easier for you to exercise a casting vote in circumstances where you would not compromise any party affiliations you or any future Speaker may have. I accept the difficult position you are in.
I do not intend in this debate to rail against anyone personally. I do not think it will advantage the house.
Mr Berry: You are not doing so bad so far.
MR COLLAERY: I think there are some here on the floor today who are going to vote against the Bill who know in their hearts that they are doing an injustice. You are doing an injustice, and you know it. I am not going to try to identify who you are. It is simply unfair to give a party leader, who has no more MLAs than I have, a vastly greater sum of money, and it is more unfair in the light of his performance and his contribution to the life of this Assembly and the interests of the Territory. I will go no further.
It is self-evident that the Labor Party have put their money on a crumbling stable, and so be it. I thought they were pretty good at choosing their horses; but it is not such a good one this time, I suggest. It has well and truly exemplified the continuing life of the duopoly in this Assembly. So be it. So be the vote. Certainly it will, of course, give us more of a clarion call to our own
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