Page 1497 - Week 05 - Thursday, 7 April 2005
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
MR SPEAKER: Order! Resume your seat, Mr Mulcahy. That is not a point of order. You may wish to make a personal explanation at the conclusion of the debate, but that is not a point of order.
Dr Foskey: I will make a personal explanation, then. Thank you.
MR SPEAKER: At the conclusion of the debate.
Dr Foskey: At the end of the debate. Okay.
MR SPEAKER: You have already spoken in the debate.
Ms MacDonald: I take a point of order, Mr Speaker. I question the relevance of this issue to this motion. The motion is a motion of no confidence in the Minister for Planning, Minister for Health and Manager of Government Business in this place. It is not a motion of no confidence in Dr Foskey and a conversation that took place between Mrs Dunne and Dr Foskey is not relevant.
MR SPEAKER: Thank you, Ms MacDonald. These debates are usually wide-ranging. The motion before the house is a wide-ranging motion and Mrs Dunne has only just started to speak. While she confines herself to matters consistent with the motion before the house, she does not breach the standing orders.
MRS DUNNE: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I will not be breaching the standing orders. The conversation between Dr Foskey and me relates directly to what I claim is possibly the benefit offered to Dr Foskey by Mr Corbell, the Manager of Government Business. I will read directly from my record of conversation:
I approached Dr Foskey in the Chamber towards the end of question time and asked her had she had any thoughts about the makeup of the Estimates Committee.
I told her that I had discussed the matter with some of my colleagues and there was a high level of anger about the proposal—
that is, the government’s proposal—
and that I proposed to say something about the developments in the Adjournment Debate that afternoon.
Dr Foskey told me that she had raised the matter with Mr Corbell presumably in his capacity as Manager of Government Business. Dr Foskey said:
“I have raised this with Simon … and he has told me that he thought he could see his way clear to proposing that Caucus agree to me being on the committee so long as I support the Government for the chairmanship of the committee”.
I began to speak to Dr Foskey about the precedents and how it had never been the case that government members chaired an estimates committee.
actually, I understand now that I was not quite correct in that—
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .