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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 4 Hansard (27 March) . . Page.. 900 ..

MR STANHOPE

I must say on the point that Mr Osborne made about pairs, and Ms Tucker can defend herself, that there is no way in those circumstances that Ms Tucker could possibly have assumed what your attitude or view would be. I do recall after the debate Mr Rugendyke declaring with some passion that he can read your mind, that he is at one with you and knows exactly and precisely what you are thinking.

Mr Humphries: You know what other Labor members are thinking.

MR STANHOPE: Absolutely. As you know very well, we actually caucus on decisions.

Mr Quinlan: And we were here.

MR STANHOPE: We were here. We caucus and we understand; we do not have to rely on mental telepathy. I am pleased that the government is now accepting that the matter should be referred to the Administration and Procedure Committee. It always should have gone there. The fact that Mr Moore gave notice of this motion does not reduce in any way the fact that it is a stunt. Giving notice of a stunt does not make it not a stunt; it is still a stunt. It is simply a stunt for which notice was given, but it is still a stunt. It should never have been proceeded with in this way. If the government was determined to proceed with an amendment to the standing orders, it should have gone straight to the Administration and Procedure Committee. There should have been no attempt to force it through, to bludgeon it through, in this way without having the matter reviewed or investigated.

It is all right to refer to what happens in the House of Representatives. It is all right to refer to what happens supposedly in New Zealand. The Senate has not adopted this rule, and there are very good reasons for that. There are very good reasons that this Assembly should think about doing so.

Mr Humphries: New Zealand has.

MR STANHOPE: But the Senate has not. It is worth reflecting on why the Senate has not adopted this rule. The considerations in relation to why the Senate has not adopted this rule are pertinent to the sort of consideration that the Administration and Procedure Committee needs to give to whether it should be adopted in this Assembly. They go to the fact that Mr Osborne has made play about, that is, that we have minority government. Just as the Senate is hung, so is this parliament. The notion of not permitting members in a hung parliament to participate in a particular debate but of then allowing them to run in from the sideline and participate in the votes is an absolute nonsense.

Excluding members from the place during a debate but then allowing them to rush back to their seat and vote in a division seems to be quite bizarre. It seems to me to be an absurdity. It is a bit like allowing a sin binned rugby league player to cross the sideline as a winger is belting down the sideline and about to score-Ken Nagas, probably-and ankle tap the winger. It is exactly the same sort of scenario. It is a nonsense. The one benefit of the notion of actually excluding people from the chamber during the debate is that we would be saved, those of us on this side at least, the tedious nonsense that we would otherwise have to bear. In a way it could be a disguised blessing. Excluding someone from the debate but requiring them to participate in a vote seems a very strange concept to me. Just to put it into perspective, I do not think we need to go over the issue much more than that. We are going to debate it at a later date. But it is important for the government to accept its role and its responsibility as the catalyst for the issue in the first place. The fact is that Mr Moore took 15 to 20 minutes to answer a dorothy dixer and, during the answer, defamed quite outrageously the secretary of the ANF, and then he stands here like Pontius Pilate-

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