Page 3955 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 16 December 1992
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On the way that other parliaments deal with urgency matters, I would argue that most of the matters we have dealt with swiftly between introduction and passage have been matters that probably would not be urgency Bills. Last week we dealt with the amendment to the Bail Act. That was the sort of thing that probably would stand the test of an urgency motion in any other parliament. It corrected an unforeseen consequence of the original Bail Act. Again, it was introduced and passed within a few days, with the support of opposition and independent members. That one, I grant Mr Stevenson, probably would stand the test of urgency in any other parliament because it was correcting an error. But some of the other things that we have debated within a quite short framework would not.
Madam Speaker, I am not sure what attitude the Liberal Party is going to take to this measure. I hope that it will take the attitude of a major party which has been in government in the past and which no doubt seeks to be in government in the future, rather than wanting to play some politics in this. I thought it might be prudent, because I somehow thought we might be debating issues of fast-fast-slow-slow-fast-fast in the Assembly this week, to have a look at what happened in the last two sittings - - -
Mrs Carnell: Why? Because you are ramming Bills through?
MR CONNOLLY: As I said in the debate the other day, the handbook on how to conduct yourself in opposition is a book which, given the ABC reports this morning, I would commend to most members opposite - although one member did get a very good individual report card. One of the things that handbook says is: If you have nothing to say, complain about the speed of government business. You have two options: The Government is going either too fast or too slow. On any given Bill, when you have no other criticism or nothing to say, you can usually filibuster on one or other of those two arguments. This Opposition has advanced that to the fine artform of often being able to say "too slow" and "too fast", almost in the same breath.
I thought it would be useful to see what the Opposition's record was. I looked at the Hansard for the last two sitting weeks in 1990, which was the time when the ramshackle Alliance was still steering the ship of state in concentric circles. In those last two weeks there were 13 measures - there may have been more, but I can identify 13 measures - that were introduced and passed. Two of those were introduced and passed in the last week, and one was quite significant - the reduction of the blood alcohol limit from .08 to .05.
Mr Kaine: Quite urgent; an urgent Bill.
MR CONNOLLY: It was, and it was one that the then Opposition supported. The other matter related to the Magistrates Court.
Mr Kaine: It would have gone through whether you did or not, I remind you, Mr Connolly.
MR CONNOLLY: Mr Kaine obviously enjoyed attempting to ram things through, and to the extent that he could depend on his numbers in that arrangement he tried to do it.
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