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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 10 Hansard (28 August) . . Page.. 2951 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

the government do that the private sector cannot for the same outlay and with the same efficiencies, and how will it do so? Why are the constraints any different?

MR CORBELL: Mr Speaker, I think I answered that question fully in the Estimates Committee.

Mr Humphries: Mr Speaker, on a point of order: there is no standing order which says that a question asked at the Estimates Committee cannot be asked again in here.

MR CORBELL: That is my answer. I have given you my answer.

Mr Humphries: The members of the Estimates Committee had the answer, not the members of the Assembly. The members of the Assembly are entitled to hear the answer to the question even if it was asked at the Estimates Committee, which it wasn't.

MR SPEAKER: Mr Humphries, resume your seat. The minister has given his response to the question and there is not much I can do about it.

Mr Humphries: Mr Speaker, the minister seems to be arguing that he is not obliged to answer a question that has been asked elsewhere. With respect, the Assembly has asked a question. There are members in this place who were not present at the Estimates Committee, who were not on the Estimates Committee. Is the minister saying that there is a standing order which prevents him from answering the question? If he is simply declining to answer the question because he does not wish to answer the question a second time in the space of two months-

MR SPEAKER: Resume your seat, Mr Humphries; there is no point of order. I refer you to standing order 118, which goes to the issue of questions without notice. The answer to a question without notice shall be concise and confined to the subject matter of the question and shall not debate the subject to which the question refers. I think it complies with that. There is little more that I can do about it.

Mr Humphries: Is the minister saying that he is not obliged to answer the question because of a standing order or that he simply does not wish to answer the question because he has already answered it somewhere else?

MR SPEAKER: Mr Humphries, I think you misunderstand; the minister has answered the question.

Mr Humphries: With great respect, Mr Speaker, he has not answered the question. Clearly, to get up in this place and say-

MR SPEAKER: Resume your seat. You do not have a point of order.

Mr Humphries: I believe that I do, Mr Speaker.

MR SPEAKER: The only way that you can deal with it is by way of a substantive motion, but you do not have a point of order.

Mr Humphries: All right, I will move a substantive motion later. Okay, it suits me.

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