Page 3977 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 16 December 1992
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been drawn to my attention members have got a response very smartly indeed. I do not want answers delayed either, but I think that a 30-day time period is totally unrealistic. I find it very strange that the motion is being moved today when we are about to have a 60-day period of non-sitting. I cannot imagine that that 30-day proposal has been very well thought through or that there is any particular reason for choosing that period.
Madam Speaker, as I say, I oppose the motion. It would have an enormous capacity to virtually stifle the Government's ability to get on with its business. It is highly likely that it would involve this Assembly in endless debates of purely political point scoring on the question of deadlines rather than debates on matters of substance. Finally, Madam Speaker, as I say, any members who want an issue clarified or who feel that their question has not been dealt with in a timely enough fashion can draw that to a Minister's attention. They will certainly - I am sure that I speak for all Ministers - get a response.
MR KAINE (Leader of the Opposition) (12.25): Madam Speaker, I think that the Chief Minister's response to this motion is peculiar, to say the least. Her argument is that, out of approximately 480 questions, there are only 77 unanswered; and she said that most of those have been answered in 30 days. Then she said that 30 days is an unrealistic and unreasonable target. She argued against her own case. I do not accept that 30 days is an unreasonable time. The Chief Minister did not convince me. The important point here is not the fact that 90 per cent of the questions have been answered within 30 days. The point is that 77 remain unanswered, and some of those go back to April. It is totally unreasonable, Madam Speaker, for any member of the Assembly to have to wait for eight months for an answer to a question seeking information.
I take issue with the Chief Minister's comment about members using questions without notice as a political weapon. The Labor Party might. I use the questions on notice to get information that was not forthcoming in the Estimates Committee and to get information that does not come out of questions without notice because some Ministers waffle and will not answer the questions. If I want information I have to put questions on notice. That is why I ask them. The Chief Minister may care to admit that she uses this forum as a political weapon. I do not make any such concession, and I reject totally the suggestion that I do.
Madam Speaker, this is not an unreasonable proposition. It is not going to bring the Government to a grinding halt. It has not brought the Senate to a grinding halt; nor will it do so here since, by the Chief Minister's own admission, 90 per cent of the questions have been answered within the 30-day period that Mr Humphries's motion calls for. It is a reasonable request, and the Chief Minister would do well to agree with the rest of the Assembly that it is a reasonable time and let us get on with it.
Motion (by Mr Humphries) proposed:
That the question be now put.
MADAM SPEAKER: A closure motion must be put without amendment or debate, unless it shall appear to the Speaker that such a motion is an abuse of the rules of the Assembly or an infringement of members' rights. So far we have had only three people speak to the original motion. The closure motion is therefore an abuse of members' rights. I will not put the question.
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