Page 1586 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 19 May 1993
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Mr Kaine: It is one option.
MR LAMONT: Yes. What are the other options? I would have thought that in a motion such as this, if there was to be some "penalty" for failure to comply, or failure to answer, or inability to answer or whatever - - -
Mr De Domenico: A $200 fine perhaps.
MR LAMONT: You are sin-binning or whatever, Mr De Domenico.
Mr Kaine: The Assembly can simply require the Minister to answer within seven days or something, which is not unreasonable.
MR LAMONT: Then the Minister can answer within seven days, but what if you are unhappy with the political context within which the question has been answered? All I am saying to you is that the way in which this proposal is cobbled together does not provide for an appropriate resolution of any impasse. That may very well be a question that the Administration and Procedures Committee needs to address specifically. The rules provide at the moment that, if anybody is unhappy with the way in which anything occurs or the way in which any Minister conducts affairs, that person can move a censure motion. It is quite simple. It is provided for in the standing orders. If that is one of the resolutions, that provision is already there. That provision already being there, why do we need what I consider to be a quite semantic lead-in to this proposition?
Mr Kaine: Because we want to bring home to the Ministers the importance of answering questions.
MR LAMONT: I understand the question. I understand that that is the position.
Mr Kaine: Well, just sit down. You have the point. You are right. You are okay.
MR LAMONT: Thank you, Mr Kaine. When I need to address you for advice on tactics it will be a very cold day in hell. I thank you for your interjection, but I again reject the advice as being ill founded and not appropriate.
Mr Kaine: You must be pretty lonely if you never seek anybody's advice.
MR LAMONT: I do seek people's advice, but generally from people who I know can give me some substance to that advice, Mr Kaine.
What is being said this morning, Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, is that the way in which this particular temporary order is being constructed is not appropriate, in our view; that there are considerable problems, as outlined by both the Chief Minister and the Deputy Chief Minister; but that because the standing orders are being reviewed, and because the questions that have been raised will, hopefully, be addressed by that process, the danger or the damage that can result from this temporary order sitting on the table for that period is, to some extent, ameliorated. This motion will pass this morning. As part of the process of open government and in accordance with the rights of members of this Assembly, there is a well-accepted practice that questions on notice are an appropriate way to elicit information. With all of that in mind, as I say, it will pass this morning, but I do hope that all members regard the response which they will receive to questions on notice in the context of the comments that have been made this day.
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