Page 892 - Week 04 - Thursday, 3 May 2007
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emissions is an important underpinning of a strong and measurable strategy. Accordingly, I commend the Environment Protection (Fuel Sales Data) Amendment Bill 2007 to the Assembly.
Debate (on motion by Mr Mulcahy) adjourned to the next sitting.
Allocation of the call
MR SPEAKER: Dr Foskey, you have raised a matter with me. If you would like to raise it with me now on the public record, it would be better, because everybody would know what you raised. Would you please do that?
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I just raised a matter of concern that in this instance I was standing up before Mr Mulcahy. Obviously, this is an issue of great interest to me. I remarked to you that it often happens that people do not look my way and I asked whether it is practice for an opposition member to always be the person who is recognised to adjourn the debate. In this case, I was very keen to be that person. That was the issue that I raised.
MR SPEAKER: It is my decision about noticing, if you like, somebody who rises in the context of a debate. I noticed Mr Mulcahy and called him. That is the way it is dealt with from the chair. If nobody in the opposition rose, and somebody else rose, they would get the call. It is not the practice that it is the opposition first, except that routinely in question time I call the leader of the opposition first, unless he does not want to, and I will continue to do that.
We know that you are keenly interested in these matters, Dr Foskey, but at the end of the day I have to call somebody; it is just an exercise of my prerogative. If you were on your feet first, it would not be the first time that somebody has been on their feet first and not been called. For example, sometimes members are not in the house while other members are here—say, at question time—and continually trying to get the call; then, later on, somebody comes into the house. I consciously try to give a bit of a go to the people who have been pressing to get the call first. I hope that explains how I deal with the issue. I also try to be fair in the allocation of the call to members in this place so that everybody gets a bit of a fair go. No doubt you will get the call when it comes to debating the bill.
Water Resources Bill 2007
Mr Stanhope, pursuant to notice, presented the bill, its explanatory statement and a Human Rights Act compatibility statement.
Title read by Clerk.
MR STANHOPE (Ginninderra—Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Business and Economic Development, Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Minister for the Environment, Water and Climate Change, Minister for the Arts) (10.39): I move:
That this bill be agreed to in principle.
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