Page 912 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 30 March 1993
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belittle it, but that is understandable, given your sensitivity on such issues; you do not like being caught out. Although you are a minority government, you have the attitude that you should be able to get away with virtually anything in this place, or get away with everything. Well, you cannot do it. We are not prepared to allow you to get away with coming in here and making statements which subsequently prove to be misleading. If you do that on each and every occasion we on this side of the house will move censure motions against the Minister concerned. This is our role, our responsibility, and we certainly will not be resiling from it.
MR MOORE (4.21): Madam Speaker, to continue Mr Cornwell's approach on the role and the responsibility, I think it is really important that we take very seriously what is occurring here. By the levity of the debate today, by the lightness of the debate, one would have to be concerned about whether or not a debate on a censure motion is taking place in this house. Madam Speaker, I want to quote from House of Representatives Practice. Talking about censure motions, it says:
The effect of carrying such a motion against a Minister may be inconclusive as far as the House is concerned as any further action would be in the hands of the Prime Minister -
in this case we can relate that to exactly the same process, to the Minister and to the Chief Minister -
but parliamentary pressure has caused the resignation or dismissal of Ministers on a number of occasions.
They refer to those occasions. This particular section, Madam Speaker, on page 346, starts with these words:
From time to time a specific motion of want of confidence in, or censure of, a particular Minister ...
When we are talking about censure we are really talking about a want of confidence in a Minister. We are talking of the Minister as we would if we had a want of confidence motion - a no-confidence motion, in other words - in the Chief Minister. We are not talking about a government coming down, but we are certainly talking about a situation where the Assembly, were it to support this motion, would be saying, "We think that this Minister is incompetent and should be removed" or "We think that this Minister has been competent in some ways but has done something that is so dastardly that he ought to be removed from his portfolio". That is why, Madam Speaker, when there is a motion of censure before the house, whether it be of a Minister or of a member - it has occurred in this house to a member, as I recall - it is a matter to be taken particularly seriously.
I put that perspective, Madam Speaker, to make sure that members understand exactly what we are talking about. For Mr Humphries to rise and start his speech by saying what he is not doing, that he is not suggesting that the Minister set out to mislead the Assembly - - -
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