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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 12 Hansard (18 November) . . Page.. 4231 ..

MRS BURKE (continuing):

not good enough. It is a problem that feeds on and sees someone with a mental illness deteriorate even further.

Prior to the 2001 election, the ACT ALP promised to spend $1.5 million over three years to develop a drug strategy. What have we seen? After two years of government we are still waiting. Nothing. Those opposite are the very same people who told us they had all the answers to the drug problems in Canberra.

MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please! The time for discussion has now expired.

Administration and Procedure-Standing Committee

Report No 3

MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: On behalf of Mr Speaker, I present

Report No 3 of the Standing Committee on Administration and Procedure entitled Inquiry into standing order 118-Proposed time limit for answers to questions without notice, together with a copy of the relevant extracts of the minutes of proceedings.

MR HARGREAVES (4.45): I seek leave to move a motion to authorise publication of the report.

Leave granted.

MR HARGREAVES: I move:

Question resolved in the affirmative.

MR HARGREAVES: I move:

I would like to give members some background; it is contained within the report-but often with these reports members do not actually read them. In the Fourth Assembly, and indeed in March 2001, the Assembly directed that the Standing Committee on Administration and Procedure inquire into and report on an amendment to standing orders to set time limits for the asking and answering of questions without notice. But the committee recommended to the Assembly that the proposal not be supported. It drew on the controls and protections that exist within standing orders and recommended that members be made more aware of their obligations in the asking and answering of questions during question time. Support for the Speaker in his or her control of question time was also encouraged.

The present practice, as members will know, is that no time limits apply to the answering of questions during question time. However, standing order 118-we regularly hear about standing order 118-requires that answers be concise, confined to the subject

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