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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 13 Hansard (21 November) . . Page.. 3904 ..

MS DUNDAS (12.07), in reply: I wish to close the debate, Mr Speaker. I thank the members who participated in the debate for putting their views to the Assembly on the situation with committees. As has been said again and again during this debate, committees are a key part of what we do and it is important that we reach a situation where we can get on with the work of the committees.

I would like to respond to a few of the points made by Mr Hargreaves. He suggested that acceptance of this motion would result in a member being forced to do something that the member did not want to do. That is not the intention of this motion. It is not my aim at all to force members to do things they do not wish to do. But, as members, we do have a responsibility to serve the community and committee work is one way in which we do that. The discussion of how we then serve and how we share the workload is the key to the debate that we are having today and the proposal that I have put forward would result in an equitable transfer of the workload.

I agree with the statements that have been made that every committee in this place is interesting and has an amazing array of things to do with what goes on in the ACT. I would be happy to serve on all of the committees, but I just do not have the time. I am concerned that there are people who are violently opposed to serving on any of the committees and discovering the interest in the community in what is going on in such diverse areas.

I was also interested in the comment made by Mr Hargreaves about whom in this place is happy and whom is not. It appears that the government is willing to support the happiness of one member over the happiness of other members. With other solutions being put forward, I am at a loss to understand the government's thinking on that and why it values the happiness of some members over the happiness of others.

Again, I commend this motion to the house as a motion that equitably divides the work of committees among the members of this Assembly and allows us to get on with the work of serving the community in the ACT.

Question put:

That Ms Dundas ' motion be agreed to.

The Assembly voted-

	Ayes, 8  			Noes, 9

 Mr Cornwell  	Mr Smyth  	Mr Berry  	Ms MacDonald
 Ms Dundas  	Mr Stefaniak  	Mr Corbell  	Mr Quinlan
 Mrs Dunne  	Ms Tucker  	Mrs Cross  	Mr Stanhope
 Mr Humphries   		Ms Gallagher  	Mr Wood
 Mr Pratt      			Mr Hargreaves  

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