Page 3223 - Week 10 - Thursday, 25 August 2005
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Ms MacDonald: Mr Deputy Speaker, I wish to raise a point of order. Could you ask that the gallery be cleared, or that people take their seats and cease their conversations. They are being disorderly.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I call for order in the gallery please. A little bit of quietness would not go astray.
MR BERRY: I am moving this motion today because I believe that, with this Assembly having being in existence for some 16 years, the time for a code of practice for Assembly members is long overdue. The matter has had a long history in the Assembly. As early as 1991 the then Standing Committee on Administration and Procedure recommended that the Assembly adopt a code of conduct for members. For one reason or another that recommendation was never taken up.
In the Third Assembly, the matter was again considered by the Standing Committee on Administration and Procedure. That committee was not able to finish its inquiry during the life of the parliament, and made a statement in the closing days of the Third Assembly urging members of the Fourth Assembly to take the matter up again. In the Fourth Assembly the Standing Committee on Administration and Procedure undertook a further inquiry into a code of conduct, as well as looking at whether the Assembly needed a parliamentary ethics adviser. That committee reported in August 2001 and recommended that a code of conduct be adopted. It also recommended that a parliamentary ethics commissioner not be appointed at that time. That recommendation for a code of conduct was also not taken up.
In the Fifth Assembly, the Standing Committee on Administration and Procedure conducted an inquiry into the appropriateness of a code of conduct for members and their staff. It reported in August of last year and it, too, recommended that a code of conduct be adopted for members, with slight modifications made to the code proposed back in 1991. So you can see that this issue has been discussed for a long period of time, much longer than the gestation period of an elephant. In the meantime there have been codes of conduct for ministers in place since May 1995, when the Carnell government tabled a ministerial code of conduct. The Stanhope government has also adopted a code of conduct for the executive and staff.
I have moved this motion today not only because I think it is time that there was a code of conduct for members of the Legislative Assembly but also because I believe there is a consensus for it amongst members. Codes exist in several other parliaments: Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland and Tasmania. In its report in 2001, the Standing Committee on Administration and Procedure cited research from the respected social commentator, Hugh Mackay, where he stated that:
Australians view the honesty and ethics of Members of both State and Federal Parliament as only slightly better than those of car salesmen. Only 7 per cent of Australians believe that Members of both State (down 2 per cent, since 1997) and Federal (down 2 per cent) Parliament are of high or very high standards of honesty and ethics. The only profession rating lower than Members of Parliament is car salesmen…
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