Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 9 Hansard (31 August) . . Page.. 2641 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

We have agreed in earlier debate here that the long period of time presently provided, effectively five sitting weeks, for disallowable instruments to lie on the table is excessive. The history of this Assembly shows very clearly that if an instrument is going to be disallowed it will be disallowed generally very early on in the process of a debate on that particular issue. It will be disallowed early in the disallowance period. It is rare for us to run towards the end of a disallowance period. I do not think it has happened in recent years, but it happened I think in the first couple of Assemblies. When it did happen it was generally as a result of a member wanting to make sure it went as late as possible in order to delay the onset of some particular matter or to take some other tactical advantage from a debate in that context.

So, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, we have agreed that there should be a reduction in the time here, but the question is: By how much? I would ask the Assembly to go with the government amendment of six sitting days rather than Mr Stanhope's proposal for 12 sitting days. The reason principally is that, although we support the first two amendments reducing the time that it will take between the making and the tabling of instruments, the fact remains that, for as long as I can remember, documents that are made by governments of either persuasions are generally tabled in this place on pretty well the first available opportunity or very shortly thereafter. So the 15 sitting days provided for presently in, I think, section 6 of the legislation for the tabling of documents is rarely used. Reducing it from 15 days to six days or to 12 days, as the case may be, will have no practical impact on the time that the process takes to operate because the Government, be it this Government or another government, generally gets the thing on the table pretty well straightaway. It might as well be one sitting day. Maybe that is a bit excessive but it makes, in effect, little difference. Almost invariably the thing is tabled on the first or the second sitting day after it is made or gazetted, as the case may be. So, although I support Mr Stanhope's amendments Nos 1 and 2, I do not think it makes a great deal of practical difference at the end of the day.

The real difference is made by the time the thing lies on the floor of the Assembly. If you have a project, for example, which is waiting to get off the ground but cannot get off the ground until the disallowance period has ended, the Government can rush a document onto the floor of the Assembly on the first available day, but it cannot shorten that period of 15 days without some kind of subterfuge, like getting a member to move disallowance when he does not actually believe in it in order that we can have a debate and settle on the issue and go ahead on the basis that we have had the disallowance debate. As I am sure members would agree, that is a silly device and should not be used in order simply, in effect, to reduce that period of disallowance.

Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, I think six sitting days is much more realistic. In any given sitting period six sitting days means that a disallowance can be moved after the sitting period in which the document is tabled. So, if we are sitting for, say, two weeks in a row, as we are this fortnight, and a disallowable instrument is tabled on the first day of those two weeks, a disallowance motion can be moved as late as the beginning of the next sitting period after this two-week period. So the shortest period you could have for a member to move disallowance is three weeks. The longest period could be close to three months when you take into account recesses and things like that.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .