Page 1831 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 22 August 2007
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standards should involve good trousers, a jacket, collar and tie for men and a similar standard of formality for women.
Mr Speaker, I was wondering if you can comment on whether or not you consider that your dress this morning, which was unusual by your standards, did indeed involve good trousers. Can you comment on the issue of the lack of a collar and tie and whether or not a leather jacket is acceptable dress in terms of neatness, cleanliness and decency, as former speakers have ruled in regard to?
MR SPEAKER: Thank you for drawing to my attention the ruling of Speaker Andrew. I am not aware that he has ever been involved in a fundraising effort for a rescue helicopter. Nor has he been awarded a vote on his skills as a dancer by such a wily judge as Senator Gary Humphries. The good senator put on his vote a condition: that I wear this garb—the good trousers, the nice leather jacket and the white T-shirt—into the chamber if he was to award his vote. I was hungry for the vote because it was for a good cause. As you know, I always deliver. It should not be taken as a precedent.
Mr Pratt: Mr Speaker, I would like to move a motion in support of Mr Corbell’s inquiry: that you be punished forthwith by having to wear a wig in the old Westminster tradition for at least three months.
MR SPEAKER: I do not think you have leave for that motion. I live in terror that it might be carried!
Emergency services—mobile data communications systems
MR PRATT (Brindabella) (11.43): I move:
That this Assembly:
(1) notes that:
(a) the 2003-04 budget announced funding of $23.6 million for the implementation of a range of communications programs for the Emergency Services, including the mobile data communications and automatic vehicle location system;
(b) the Government approved the use of a single select tender for the purchase of the mobile data communications and automatic vehicle location system on the basis that it be operational for the 2004-05 bushfire season;
(c) FireLink has cost in excess of $4.5 million, $1.3 million over the initial budget forecast;
(d) both Mr Corbell and his predecessor, Mr Hargreaves, in their capacities as Emergency Services Ministers repeatedly stated that FireLink was fully operational and working effectively;
(e) the Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Mr Corbell, announced in July that the contract for mobile data communications and automatic vehicle location system, FireLink, would be discontinued; and
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