Page 1869 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 19 August 1992
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MR HUMPHRIES: Madam Speaker, no standing order was broken, but there was the breach of a convention which has been established in this house.
MADAM SPEAKER: Would you withdraw any imputation, then, that perhaps standing orders were broken?
MR HUMPHRIES: I made no such imputation, Madam Speaker.
MADAM SPEAKER: I believe that that is the inference that people are drawing, so perhaps you would like to withdraw the inference.
MR HUMPHRIES: Madam Speaker, I made no inference, and I withdraw any inference, that standing orders were broken. However, I maintain that it was reprehensible for government members to have advanced their matter of public importance for debate today in the manner in which they did. They breached a longstanding convention in this place.
Mr Connolly: No, the convention was set in the first couple of weeks.
MR HUMPHRIES: The convention was established in this place. It has not been breached since the first month of the Assembly's establishment.
Mrs Grassby: No, that is wrong.
Mr Berry: No. You are miffed. You have made a big mistake.
MR HUMPHRIES: If those opposite maintain that there was no convention, why did the first Follett Government for the remainder of its time in office, the Alliance Government for the whole of its time in office and the second Follett Government for the whole of its time in office, in turn, until today, not put forward, via their backbenchers or anybody else, a matter of public importance?
Mr Moore: If they were appropriate we would change the standing orders.
MR HUMPHRIES: Perhaps that is so, but they have respected the convention that they not do so.
Mrs Grassby: That is not true.
Ms Ellis: No, it is not my decision.
MR HUMPHRIES: Madam Speaker, those opposite can plead and pretend that that is not the case; but they know full well that there was a convention to that effect, and they have not done so. What is worse, however, is the shameful way in which three members of the Government got together to make sure that their MPI came up today, ahead of Opposition members business or non-government members business. That is utterly shameful, and you should be ashamed of yourselves for having done it. We can play that game. There are six of us on this side of the chamber; if we do the same thing we are going to win more often than you. That is not the basis on which we have proceeded in this house in the past. We have always put in one MPI, and one only, for the Opposition. You should have taken the same high standard. Obviously I was expecting too much to think those opposite would be able to take that same kind of principled action; obviously that was beyond you all.
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