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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (2 December) . . Page.. 4255 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

Mr Speaker, the obvious childishness of the Opposition in such matters continues to be breathtaking, notwithstanding the many times that we have seen it in this place. Mrs Carnell conformed with the convention that has been developed in this place of circulating the presentation speeches and, indeed, the Bills to members of this place, I think, last night. That was the arrangement that it was agreed some time ago would be necessary in order to obtain leave to incorporate speeches in Hansard.

These matters are singularly unimportant and insignificant; that is, they are not major amendments; they are minor amendments to the legislation concerned. It really is quite disgraceful that we should see this sort of filibustering by the people opposite. If they have something serious to debate, if they have a substantive issue to debate, let them bring it forward and we can see what that issue is. But we have not seen anything from this Opposition. If they have nothing better to do than make silly points like this, on the floor of the Assembly, then heaven help the Assembly if they are the government in this place after February's election.

MR BERRY (Leader of the Opposition) (12.07): This is typical of a government that is too tired to do its duty to the community of the Australian Capital Territory in relation to legislation which is presented to the house. As the Opposition spokesperson on health, I would be quite interested to hear what Mrs Carnell says in her speech.

Mr Humphries: You have already seen it.

MR BERRY: I have not read it; I intend to hear it today. It is quite appropriate that the Chief Minister read her speeches. If the Government seeks to suspend standing orders so that the Chief Minister may avoid giving speeches, I am perfectly happy to allow them to do that, because they will look quite silly. The fact of the matter is that on some issues it has been agreed in the past, but it is hardly a convention that Ministers do not read speeches when they are introducing Bills. It is not a convention; that is a figment of Mr Humphries's wild imagination, once again.

We will not be opposing the suspension of standing orders, but it will be a matter of record that the Government wants to avoid having Ministers live up to their responsibilities as Ministers when introducing legislation, to deal with their speeches in an appropriate way. If they are too tired to do that, perhaps they need to hand the reins over to somebody else. We would happily take them and read the speeches.

MR CORBELL (12.08): Mr Speaker, we seem to be having to rely on some unwritten code or signal from the Government as to when they do not want to read a speech and instead want to incorporate it in Hansard. We get little packages pushed under our doors late at night, and this is meant to be a signal that the Government does not want to read a speech; instead, it wants to have the speech incorporated in Hansard. It is simply not good enough, Mr Speaker. At no time has the Government approached this side of the house in advance and said, "Will you agree to having these speeches incorporated in Hansard?". Instead, all they have said is, "We popped it under your door, and that is your de facto consent because we have already given you an advance look".

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