Page 868 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 16 June 1992
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Mr Berry: Madam Speaker, the standing order clearly says that no debatable matter may be brought forward, and again we go to a debate about the issues.
MADAM SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr Berry. Mr Humphries, I draw your attention to standing order 47 and ask you to proceed.
MR HUMPHRIES: Madam Speaker, I hope that I have couched these comments entirely within the ambit of standing order 47.
Mr Berry: No debatable matter may be brought forward.
MR HUMPHRIES: The Chief Minister misunderstood what I was saying and I am clarifying it for her benefit, although she is not here. I was saying, Madam Speaker, that people - - -
Mr Berry: That is debatable.
MR HUMPHRIES: You cannot do this without doing that, Mr Berry. Madam Speaker, the Chief Minister assumed that I was talking about limiting choice when I said that people ought not to be in the public hospital system. What I was saying is that people ought to be given choice by expanding the non-government sector so that they did not have to be in government facilities if they did not want to be. In other words, there ought to be the choice created by a balance of deployment of resources between the two sectors to make sure that people who are in the government sector and who have the capacity to be elsewhere could make the choice to be outside that sector. I would submit, Madam Speaker, that in that respect I was being entirely consistent as between the education and health sectors.
ANIMAL WELFARE BILL 1992
Debate resumed from 21 May 1992, on motion by Mr Wood:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
MR WESTENDE (9.25): Madam Speaker, it is acknowledged that the Animal Welfare Bill is the culmination of many years of development and the input of many organisations. The Liberal Party in fact welcomes legislation that deals with the protection of animals from actual cruelty. In general, therefore, we support the general thrust of the Bill in this regard. However, Madam Speaker, we do have on the other hand some very real concerns with the Bill as it stands at present, and we have an even more serious concern with the amendment proposed by Mr David Lamont.
Madam Speaker, it is acknowledged that the area of animal welfare is a very complex and all-encompassing subject to deal with, but it is our view that it is also an area that is subject to overreaction and emotiveness and perhaps extremist objectives. We believe that this Bill is tainted with this type of response. Of course, the difficulty with taking a hard line against one form of activity is that it is very easy to be cornered by a double standard. In this regard, it is very difficult to find the rationale behind banning a rodeo but allowing horseracing to proceed. It is very hard to fathom why certain circus animals should be banned; yet the majority of the population would have either a budgie in a cage or a fish in a
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .