Page 2464 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 18 August 1993
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MR HUMPHRIES (3.11): I want to support this motion and the comments made by Mr Cornwell. Mr Wood implies that there is some sort of silent policy, some kind of plot, on the part of the Opposition to ask questions to tie up bureaucrats in the ACT Administration. I point out that we have had an eight-week recess of the Assembly, and that in those eight weeks we have had 140 questions, according to Mr Wood. Over eight weeks that averages out at about 18 questions per week. If 12 members of the Assembly cannot generate 18 questions a week between the 12 of them they are not doing their job. It seems to me to be entirely appropriate that that level of questions should come out of any reasonable work being undertaken by members of this Assembly.
It is not a tactic or ploy, as Mr Wood puts it. It is a legitimate process of using the standing orders to provide information to us; information, I might point out, which is not readily available from other sources - witness the fact that freedom of information requests are routinely abused by this Government when they are made by members of this Assembly. Members of this Assembly cannot, for example, obtain information on a public interest basis from this Government. You will find, with responses of that kind, that there are more and more questions being put on the notice paper, and more and more use of the 30-day rule of the kind that Mr Cornwell has just made, to get answers from this Government, and information which is of vital concern to us and to people in this Territory.
MR BERRY (Deputy Chief Minister) (3.13): I think it is important that I make a little contribution to this because there is the question of people conspiring to try to bog the bureaucracy down under a weighty range of questions. There is no question about that in my mind. I was looking through some of the questions on notice and I saw one from Mr De Domenico - a very silly question about the Fire Service and whether fire officers were paid each time they turned the siren on. What a silly question! In any event, this person is supposed to know so much about industrial relations. Why does he not do a bit of his own research? Just go to the library and ask for a look at the award. That will tell you.
Mr De Domenico: No, that is not necessarily so, Mr Berry.
MR BERRY: Is that too hard? Just have a look at the award. It is all in there. If you had a little look at the award you would be able to find out. What a silly question! I take the same view as Mr Wood. I will make every effort to answer questions that are raised by members. I note that there is a 30-day rule. That is a political instrument; there is no question about that. That is why it was introduced on the hill and that is why it has been followed here. But the fact is that if it comes to the crunch the health bureaucracy, the sports bureaucracy and the industrial relations bureaucracy are not going to be bogged down by a range of questions which soak up their resources. You people continually argue that the bureaucracy ought to be downsized and paid less money. Then, of course, you screech when efficient use is made of the bureaucracy, and we dictate that only a certain amount of their very valuable and expensive time is afforded to these sorts of questions. I note that there is a 30-day rule and I will make every effort to comply with it; but I can tell you that not one service will be reduced as a result of turning a bureaucrat or any other person within the bureaucracy to answering questions that would result in reduced services to the community.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
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