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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 6 Hansard (25 May) . . Page.. 1908 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

"Will you agree to an adjournment?" and I said no. The usual practice in this place if somebody disagrees with you is that you will put it to the house, but you decided on balance that that might not be worth while. That was a wise decision at the time because it was likely that you would lose.

Let me go to another issue. In this place we all know and understand that if you leave the place without a pair you loose your right to vote. Everybody understands that.

Mr Moore: At that time.

MR BERRY: That is as it is. Mr Speaker, Labor has pairing arrangements with the Liberals and we arrange pairs. If I have to leave this place when a vote is on and I have a pair, I understand that my vote is recognised, but if I leave without a pairing arrangement I understand that I give up that right. Mr Speaker, we do not pair with the crossbenchers traditionally. It has been the practice of the crossbenchers to arrange pairs amongst themselves.

I said before that Mr Moore attempted to arrange, one assumes on behalf of Mr Osborne, a pair in order that some arrangement might preserve the government's position. That failed. It is no good pointing the finger at me and no good pointing the finger at the crossbenchers either. Point the finger at yourself. Have a look in the mirror, if you are game.

Mr Speaker, it is the government that failed to keep control of the floor. Mr Osborne takes his chances when he leaves the place without arranging a pair. He throws away his right to vote. I am quite surprised that the government have raised the matter because it merely draws attention to their own competence or lack of it. I cannot understand why they try to point the finger at somebody else. This is in accordance with the standing orders. One can do these sorts of things, but whenever it happens we are going to make a noise about it and we are going to point to the lack of competence on that side of the chamber.

The issue is important to the government because one of their number has been wounded by this process. One would expect them to gather around him and try to protect him from whatever it is that faces him in the future. At one point it was a committee of this place to consider certain aspects of his behaviour, which do not need to be gone into in the context of this debate, and it was resolved, quite appropriately, that a certain model of committee would deal with it.

It appears that Mr Osborne does not think that that model is the appropriate model for this member to have his trials and tribulations examined by. He thinks it might be another committee model, the urban services committee model. In the scheme of things, I do not know what the government is trying to do here, except squirm, because, by the look of it, only the name of the committee has changed. The examination will be the same. Mr Smyth still has to have these trials and tribulations examined by somebody.

Mr Speaker, this is just a demonstration of how vulnerable the government is and how tetchy it is about most issues. In a week when a government should be doing well with a budget, it seems to have fallen apart in many respects, beginning with the terrible glitch

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