Page 3959 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 16 December 1992
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Some of them it might be appropriate to refer to a committee for detailed examination. I do not think there are any - off the top of my head, I do not recall one - but it may well be appropriate. If that is the case, we would suggest that those Bills go to a committee.
I agree with Mr Connolly that the intent of Mr Stevenson's motion is to require that every piece of legislation go through a fixed process with time limitations on it, and that, in my view, is totally inappropriate - - -
Mr Stevenson: Not every; urgent.
MR KAINE: You are talking about 59 days before the Assembly can do things. I think that is a very arbitrary figure, Mr Stevenson. I understand what you are trying to do, and the Liberal Party in opposition agrees entirely with the general thrust of what you are trying to achieve - that the Assembly have a reasonable and proper time to examine legislation. We agree with that.
We do believe, as Mr Connolly has indicated the Government believes, that you are trying to impose too rigid a regime on us. Things can be done more quickly than that in many cases, even with a contentious piece of legislation. There is no requirement to set a prescriptive 40 days, 50 days, 60 days or 70 days which must be blindly adhered to. That is the bit that I find difficult. The Liberals will not be supporting the motion, although we do support the general thrust and intent of the objective Mr Stevenson is trying to achieve. We just think he is trying to do it by the wrong methodology.
MR MOORE (11.14): We hear both the Labor and Liberal parties standing to support the intent of what Mr Stevenson is doing; but they are not happy with the rigidity of the regime it would impose, and I echo those sentiments. The question that members of the Labor and Liberal parties perhaps misunderstand is why it is so important to Mr Stevenson. It is important to Mr Stevenson because he operates very differently from the way we operate. I believe that I was elected to use my judgment and that I will be either re-elected or not elected, should I stand again, on how I have used that judgment. That is the system that works.
Mr Stevenson, however, does not want to make any decisions. What he prefers to do is to go out and poll the people and ask the questions he wants to get the answers he wants, so it all appears to be above board. Mr Stevenson also says that the most effective way of doing it is to conduct a referendum; but, on the very first opportunity that he had to vote on a referendum, the reality was that he voted against the result of that referendum. That illustrates a point that is most important, because Mr Stevenson's rationalisation of that was, "Yes, but the wrong questions were asked". That will always apply to referendums. If you do not like the result of a referendum, you will always be in a position to say that the wrong questions were asked.
Similarly, while Mr Stevenson goes out and polls people, and it is his right to adopt that technique, he needs extra time to be able to do that. As far as I am concerned, it is not good enough for the rest of us to be tied to a rigid system so that Mr Stevenson can go out and poll the people of Canberra.
Mr Kaine: We do our Gary polls too, and we do not take 59 days.
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