Page 822 - Week 03 - Thursday, 14 April 1994
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standing committees of this Assembly. On each of those, despite the at times heated debate, it was the genuine expression by each of the members of those committees that we try to arrive at a consensus in relation to the issues that were being addressed.
This is the first time that a document has been produced with additional comments or a preface where those additional comments and/or preface have not been given to the members of the committee and those additional comments influenced by members of that committee. Mr Moore shakes his head. I acknowledge that Mr Moore has gratuitously, at the bottom of these comments, made the one-line statement that these views do not necessarily reflect the views of the other members of the committee. That is fine; but I now propose, following the tabling of these additional comments, to read them, because I believe that it is appropriate that they be recorded in Hansard. I have taken the opportunity to quote Herodotus from the fifth century BC, who said:
Haste in every business brings failure.
I know that Mr Moore will understand the implications of such well-tested truisms as this one; I understand that he resorts to the use of the same style of truism to justify his own position from time to time. The additional comments state:
It is extremely disappointing that for someone who is forever accusing the major political parties of rorting the political process, Mr Moore has shown himself in finalising this report to be someone quite happy to hijack the committee process for his political purposes.
When I received the final of this report for my endorsement, I was astonished to see what Mr Moore had written in his Preface to the Report. I will deal with the substance of what Mr Moore has to say in that Preface below but first what also needs to be brought to the attention of the readers of this report is the extent to which Mr Moore has been willing to abuse his position as Chairman of the Euthanasia Committee.
The Report which the Committee has prepared is the Report of the Select Committee on Euthanasia - it is not Mr Moore's report. It is, therefore, not only gratuitous but quite reprehensible that he should impose upon this report a Preface (and an epigraph) which contains his views and not those of the Committee as a whole. If Mr Moore wishes to place on record his dissent from the majority of the Committee he is perfectly entitled to submit a dissenting report which would be appended to the report. This is the right he shares with every other member of the Committee but he has no other special rights as Chairman.
As Mr Moore believes he has a right to author a Preface with which I disagree, I see no alternative but to assume that right as well. However, as I have been denied the option of having my comments included, like Mr Moore's, at the beginning of the Report so add them now as "Additional Comments" for insertion.
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