Page 943 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 19 April 1994
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MR HUMPHRIES (4.28): Madam Speaker, I think Mr Lamont has entirely missed the point. The Assembly undoubtedly has the power to appoint chairs of committees if it so wishes; but it very rarely, if ever, exercises such a power.
Mr Lamont: It does so in unusual circumstances.
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Lamont, you have not established that unusual circumstances exist in this case. With great respect, Madam Speaker, the practice on every other occasion in the life of this Assembly, and as far as I can recall in the life of the First Assembly as well, when a chairmanship has changed hands - that is, when a person has retired from a committee, or left a committee for whatever reason, elevation to the ministry, or whatever - has always been that the committee itself has elected the replacement person. That is the practice. That is the procedure which has always been followed before. If Mr Lamont can cite an example where it has not happened that way, I am very happy to take his interjection right now; but he cannot.
Madam Speaker, there was one precedent for the Assembly appointing a chairman of a select committee which was being set up. That is the committee to which I think Mr Moore has already referred, the Estimates Committee. That was exceptional, and in fact the practice was discontinued. We have not appointed an Estimates Committee on the same basis since that time. That, I think, is an appropriate way to proceed. The Assembly committees must have the appropriate power over the management of their own functions and their own affairs. They cannot do so if the Assembly has imposed some structures from above.
Mr Lamont: But you have one member being replaced on every committee by another member. That is unusual.
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Lamont misses the point. The fact of life is that if for some reason the Planning, Development and Infrastructure Committee decided in the future that it did not wish to continue with that structure - I am not suggesting that it is going to do so - indeed, if any committee of this Assembly decided to change its structure, it has the right to make its own chairmanship changes. It has that right, and it has always exercised that right.
Mr Lamont: And it can be overturned by the Assembly.
MR HUMPHRIES: Indeed, it can; but the first choice is made by the committee, not by the Assembly. Madam Speaker, it is a very unfortunate precedent. It is not even a precedent that the Government has followed. There have been many motions in this place to change the membership of committees and the Government has not previously, except for that one exception, sought the passage of such a motion by this Assembly. I ask, Madam Speaker, that that precedent be respected.
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