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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 12 Hansard (14 November) . . Page.. 3673 ..

MR SPEAKER: I think it was a fair query.

MR HARGREAVES: It may have been. I will not go down that track-I cannot be bothered.

Mr Speaker, the crossbenchers are the people who determine their own workload. I do not see anybody over there having any right or mandate to say, as Mr Humphries has said, "You guys share the workload evenly."So what? If they want to do it, that is fine. If they want to work one of themselves to death, that is fine. It is not up to the rest of us to do it for them.

Mr Humphries: They have not done it.

MR HARGREAVES: No, but you made a big point of it in your speech, Mr Humphries. Let us call a spade a spade. All of this technical stuff is absolute hoo-ha. What you are saying is, "Let's do Mrs Cross in, let's kick her off a committee."What is the big deal to you? She is not a chair of anything, she is not going to lose any money, and there is nothing in it for you whatsoever.

Mr Speaker, I was a bit nonplussed about the interjections because they were all going at the same time. I am not sure which one was supposed to interrupt me first. Would you like to interject one at a time, please?

MR SPEAKER: Mr Hargreaves, interjections are highly disorderly, but responding to them is highly disorderly as well.

MR HARGREAVES: I cannot respond because I do not know what they were. If there were a genuine query, I would be happy to address it, but I was unable to hear the interjections.

By these provisions, all I am trying to do is allow, predominantly, the standing committee of which I am chair to operate with no political interference at all. As I said earlier, I welcome Mr Cornwell's addition to the committee-I reckon it is a great idea. But I do not want any political interference in my committee from that bunch of rubble over there. I have it running nicely, thanks very much. I ask you people to butt out of it.

Mr Humphries: This motion is doing that.

MR HARGREAVES: Your motion is, in fact, telling me-the chair-who can and who cannot go on it! You have no right to do that. Mrs Cross is no longer a member of your party.

Mrs Dunne: Mr Speaker, I seek your guidance. I have had a quick discussion with the Deputy Clerk. I suspect we may need to adjourn this to obtain your guidance on whether or not to suspend standing order 221 in this way requires an absolute majority of the Assembly. I suggest that clearer heads might come back to this, if this were adjourned until either a later hour or to another day.

MR SPEAKER: Perhaps you could move a motion that the debate be adjourned to a later hour this day.

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