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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 12 Hansard (20 November) . . Page.. 3855 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

called for that ruling. Now we seem to have developed a technique to get around your ruling. You move an amendment to add words to the end of the motion and then you use standing order 133 to delete the original words of the motion. The result is that you end up with a completely different motion being passed by the Assembly.

Mr Speaker, surely standing order 133 is not intended to allow us to separate the two parts of the motion so that we can vote a second time on an amendment we have just passed and so that we can delete the entire substantive text of the original motion moved by Ms McRae. The benefit of standing order 133 is obvious to all members. It is a way to avoid voting on a series of technical amendments. It allows you to say, "I want to separate paragraph 2 and I want to separate paragraph 3 so that we can vote on each separately".

Mr Speaker, if you allow this course to be followed here, you will be allowing a procedural device whereby we end up voting a second time on an amendment we have just passed and voting on a question to delete all the words of the original motion moved by Ms McRae. If Mr Moore does not like Ms McRae's motion, I suggest that the solution to his problem is to vote against the motion and to move another motion, rather than going through this device of adding some new words to the end and then deleting all the substantive words of the original motion.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General) (11.43): Mr Speaker, I understand what Mr Whitecross is saying. Superficially, what he says has some attraction, but the problem with what he proposes is that I do not understand how standing order 133 can be used other than in the way in which Mr Moore is proposing to use it. If Mr Whitecross is saying that you cannot use standing order 133 if by separating a question you separate an amendment from the original motion, let me say that that does not appear on the face of the standing orders to be their intention and it could produce anomalous results in other cases.

It is entirely possible that some members might feel it is appropriate to have a separate vote on two issues or might feel differently about a motion once it has been amended by the addition of certain words. Obviously, one member at least feels that they can support the second half but not the first half. They, obviously, cannot support only one half or the other half unless the motion is separated under standing order 133. That is what the standing order is for - to separate motions into two or more parts.

Ms Follett: Not once they have been passed. That is the problem.

MR HUMPHRIES: It does not say that in the standing orders. With respect, I do not know the logic in saying that this standing order operates only before a motion is amended or does not operate when a particular course of events has occurred. I can see the point Mr Whitecross is making, but I think he is stuck with the clear provisions of standing order 133.

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