Page 2732 - Week 09 - Thursday, 26 August 1993
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The procedure recommended here is one based on the procedure used in the Australian Senate. It is a procedure which the Administration and Procedures Committee believes will give people a reasonable chance of responding without engendering a fresh debate or a fresh outbreak of hostilities concerning particular allegations. If I might briefly outline the procedures that are being adopted here, they relate, first of all, to comments or allegations made in the chamber, in the Assembly itself, rather than to comments made by members outside the chamber. The procedure to be followed is that a person - or a corporation, and I will come to that in a moment - who feels aggrieved by a comment may write to you, Madam Speaker, and suggest that some wrong has been done and seek the right to respond to that.
There is one respect in which this procedure departs from that used by the Australian Senate; that is, we extend this privilege, or this right, both to individuals and to corporations. It was felt by the committee that there was no strong reason to say that a corporation could not or should not suffer damage by what might be said in this chamber, that only an individual was capable of suffering damage. That clearly is not logical. It may be that in due course corporations who might have had some damage done to their business will similarly come to this place and avail themselves of this procedure.
The contents of a response on the part of the aggrieved person will, in circumstances felt appropriate by the Speaker, be referred to the Administration and Procedures Committee, and that committee will then examine the response. It is made quite clear in the recommended motion that is attached to this report that it is not the function of the Administration and Procedures Committee to examine the allegations or determine the truth or otherwise of the comments that have been made, either by the member originating them or by the person who responds to them. It is not intended for the committee or for the Assembly to have to revisit the issue because of this process. It is intended only that the citizens or corporations have the capacity to respond to the allegations that are made. The committee may, if it feels that it is appropriate, refer a written reply to the original allegations to Hansard, so that the comments made by the citizen in response can be incorporated in Hansard. That then becomes part of the record, which stands in distinction to the comments that have been made necessitating that reply.
It is important to note that in paragraph 42 we put forward two resolutions. In subparagraph (7) it is recommended that the Administration and Procedures Committee have two courses of action. It can recommend either that no further action be taken, or that a response by the person or corporation be published by the Assembly or incorporated in Hansard. It goes on to say that the committee "shall not make any other recommendations". I make the observation that that means, for example, that it would not recommend that members be censured for having made comments in the first place.
Madam Speaker, this is a temporary order. It applies only for the life of this Assembly. Members of the next Assembly will have the opportunity of deciding whether the procedure has worked and whether it should be renewed in the next Assembly or made a permanent standing order. I trust that at some stage, if this particular power is exercised by some individual citizen or corporate citizen, there will be the opportunity to assess how well it works. If it is not used, of course, it will be hard to decide whether it is effective or not. I think we can be
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