Page 793 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 1 May 2007
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Government Procurement Act and gave one week’s notice. I am a reasonable person and, if somebody said to me that there was a crisis and we had to rush through legislation and my cooperation was needed, there would not be an issue. But that was being is very unreasonable. There were issues that were being raised. One of them had to do with a deficiency in the legislation which eventually was acknowledged, and others needed further review. We were told that that was bad luck. I asked for a reasonable amount of time to consider the legislation. It is a convention of this place that normally you would have three weeks at least, sometimes four. I have seen Mr Corbell, when he has wanted to significantly change legislation, withdraw it and say that the matter should be looked at at a later time to enable members to consider it. A new direction is coming out of Mr Stanhope’s office.
My determination in relation to the matter of accountability is being coloured by these experiences and the very different direction that is starting to become apparent in terms of the way in which the Treasurer and Chief Minister is responding to reasonable requests for accountability and reporting to this Assembly, which, as I said earlier, has a statutory duty to scrutinise the affairs of government. That is what we do as an opposition. That is what I see as my role as shadow Treasurer. For umbrage to be taken at the fact that we do take that role quite seriously I find quite galling and quite extraordinary and it seems to reflect an unjustified level of sensitivity on his part.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
The Assembly adjourned at 6.23 pm.
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