Page 146 - Week 01 - Thursday, 9 April 1992

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(a) examine the future accommodation needs of the Legislative Assembly including:

(i) the Chamber and associated recording, audio, and other facilities;

(ii) Committee and other meeting facilities;

(iii) accommodation for the Speaker, the Executive and other Members, the staff of the Speaker, Executive and other Members, the Assembly Secretariat, and the media;

(iv) library facilities;

(v) access for members of the public visiting the Assembly building; and

(vi) other facilities and services necessary for the functioning of the Executive and the Assembly and its Committees;

(b) consider an optimum layout design for the Chamber to facilitate the workings of the Assembly;

(d) consider any matters incidental to the foregoing matters.

(2) In its examination, the Committee shall take account of:

(a) the requirement to co-locate with the Assembly certain areas of the Chief Minister's Department, given the need for close interface between those areas and the Executive; and

(b) the need for efficiency and economy in the functioning of the Assembly and the Executive, and in the provision of the new premises.

(3) The Committee shall report by the last sitting day of the 1992 Autumn sittings.

Madam Speaker, in my speech to the Assembly on its first sitting day I foreshadowed at that time that one of the immediate tasks facing us as an Assembly is to plan for modest and appropriate accommodation for the Assembly in the future. I also indicated that I believed that the issue would be best progressed through the Assembly's committee system. In view of the responsibility which the Administration and Procedures Committee has for such matters as advising on members' entitlements, including facilities and services, and the operation of the Assembly's Hansard service and the Assembly's library, it seems to me to be the most appropriate committee to take on this inquiry.

The proposed terms of reference, I believe, will ensure that the inquiry takes full account of the accommodation needs of the Assembly and that the outcome will have due regard to the need for efficiency and for economy, both in the functioning of the Assembly and the Executive and in the provision of new premises. In principle, as I have said before, the Government favours the South Building as the new location for the Assembly, and it is therefore proposed that the committee consider the viability of refurbishing that building for this purpose.

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