Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .
Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (28 June) . . Page.. 2160 ..
MR HIRD
(continuing):To this end, the committee recommends that the act be amended to authorise the broadcasts of all public proceedings of the parliament and its committees, subject to any conditions or guidelines specified by the parliament. The draft guidelines recommended by the committee would ensure that the broadcasting of parliamentary proceedings at least remained, in the interim, largely as it is. The report also recommends that the parliament should be given a statutory power to withdraw broadcasting rights and that this power should be also be delegated to the various committees.
The committee believes that the proceedings of the parliament should ultimately be broadcast on the parliamentary Internet home page. This will require the Assembly to film its own proceedings. The greatest practical change that would arise from these recommendations and if the act were amended is that committees would no longer need your authorisation, Mr Speaker, to allow broadcasts of individual public hearings. I dare say you will be delighted to hear that. Committees, however, would be delegated the authority to withdraw broadcasting rights, and they would have to follow certain protocols to protect the interests of witnesses.
I commend the report to the parliament and to members.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
MR BERRY
(3.51): In the course of the luncheon break I thought of another amendment which might help Mr Humphries out. It went to the words "certain comments". We have this ridiculous amendment that seeks to insert the words:The Assembly notes that certain comments in the dissenting report of Mr Hargreaves, if used in the Assembly, would constitute a breach of the Standing Orders of the Assembly and would be required to be withdrawn ...
Which comments? There are several pages of them. I know that Mr Humphries has drawn attention to the ones that upset him, but we are going to pass an amendment which refers to certain comments in a report that is fairly lengthy by any measure. I cannot imagine that this sort of an amendment could be allowed. There is a certain amount of ill will towards the amendment that has been moved by Mr Humphries, to which I have put forward an amendment.
I wonder whether Mr Humphries would agree if we were to say in this amendment:
That the Assembly notes that the comments "I suspect that these reductions reflect the personal commitment of the Attorney General and certain members of Standing Committee to de-fund these activities because the activities have publicly disagreed with those members' views on sensitive subjects" would constitute a breach of the standing orders of the Assembly
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .