Page 1234 - Week 04 - Thursday, 4 May 2006
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government member as its Chair”. That is the House of Representatives practice; that is the House of Representatives standing order. Our standing order states:
Every committee, before proceeding to other business, shall elect a Presiding Member and a Deputy Presiding Member.
It does not say that has to be from the government—and this is the whole point, Mr Speaker.
Mr Corbell: It doesn’t say that it can’t be either.
MR SMYTH: Mr Corbell says the Assembly is bigger. Well, amend the standing order. That is the point.
Mr Corbell: You don’t need to. The standing orders are silent on the matter. The Assembly can determine its own business.
MR SMYTH: It cannot be—
Members interjecting—
MR SPEAKER: Order! Mr Smyth is closing the debate.
MR SMYTH: Mr Speaker, standing order 225 says that the committee shall elect the presiding member; the committee shall have an election—and it is not an election if the outcome is determined before the election is held. Right? What we have here is the supreme soviet of the ACT: “Welcome, comrades. You can vote for anybody as long as it’s one of us.” This is Das Kapital in the ACT. This is the sort of organisation Jon Stanhope runs: “You can vote for anyone as long as it is us, comrades. Welcome to the supreme soviet of the ACT.”
Soviet Russia for decades said that they were a democracy. Why were they a democracy? Because they held elections. But they were not fair elections. They breached the fundamental notion of election—that people are free to vote for whom they want. It is the basis of all real democracy. It is why the Soviet Union and communism failed—because they were not real elections. It was not a democracy. “You can vote for anyone as long as it is one of us.” Welcome to the supreme soviet of the ACT, Commissar Jon Stanhope in charge.
Mr Speaker, I believe dissention from your ruling should be moved, voted on and supported by this Assembly because Mr Corbell’s original assertion is just wrong. If he wants this to go ahead, he should either amend the standing order as it sits or suspend standing orders and move the amendment to the standing order for the purpose of stopping a proper election of a committee chairman in the estimates committee.
This is terrible; this is absolutely terrible. First of all, they sack the committee and then they want to rig the election so that you can only vote for a certain candidate. That is the strength of their commitment to true democracy: “Let us not just nobble the committee. Let us nobble the whole concept of democracy in the ACT. Let’s hark back.” It has come from Mr Corbell, the leader of the left, comrades. The comrades are in charge. Don’t you
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