Page 1231 - Week 04 - Thursday, 4 May 2006
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
practice in this place that the Assembly is the master of its own destiny. It is consistent with the philosophy we all abide by that Assembly committees are creatures of this place. For all of those reasons, Mr Speaker, your ruling should be upheld.
MRS DUNNE (Molonglo) (4.04): We have got ourselves into very muddy waters here today. It is not lightly that the opposition moves dissent from the Speaker’s ruling. It is something that we do after careful consideration. The whole extent of how far into muddy waters we are is apparent in the inconsistent messages that are coming from the Manager of Government Business and you, sir, and the things that have been said here. You said just prior to Mr Smyth moving dissent from your ruling that you thought that the Assembly was giving very strong advice to the committee. But Mr Corbell, the Manager of Government Business, says that the Assembly is giving a direction to the committee. Mr Corbell’s statement that he proposes, by his amendment, to give direction to the committee is a complete departure from the practice of this place. He started his very feeble defence of the position by saying that your ruling was consistent with the practice in this place.
Never before in the history of this place—and I stand to be corrected—has there been a decision where the Assembly has directed in any way, shape or form who should take up the chairmanship of a committee. No-one has ever done that. Probably the closest we ever came was last year in this place, when this opposition took a very principled position about who should take up the chairmanship of the estimates committee, when we said:
(1) notwithstanding the … makeup of any Legislative Assembly, we will always ensure proper scrutiny of any executive business by Assembly committees;
(2) specifically the Liberal Party will not flout the standing orders or disregard parliamentary practice to avoid scrutiny of major business, especially budgets;
(3) committees should always reflect the makeup of the Legislative Assembly; and
(4) the Leader of the Opposition’s nominee should always chair a select committee on estimates
That is the closest we have ever come to making any sort of statement in this place about who should take up the chairmanship of a committee. That was a principle position taken, but it was not a motion in this place. It was a notification of the views of the opposition. What we have here today is not a practice consistent with this place. It is a complete departure from every practice that has been conducted in this place since May 1989, when this Assembly was first formed. This has never happened before. This is not a proper process.
Mr Corbell has again got himself caught up in the thing, because Mr Corbell has contradicted himself. When I raised this issue this morning he said that it was consistent because we were using paragraph (5) to suspend standing orders. Now, in his justification for your ruling, Mr Speaker, he has said the complete opposite. If Mr Corbell wants to suspend standing orders to foist upon the estimates committee of this place directions about the chairmanship, let him have the guts to suspend standing orders specifically to do that. Let us not attach it to the motion that does not exist yet.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .