Page 2172 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 28 August 2007
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
That betrays his lack of understanding of the way in which the Albert Hall has been managed. The Albert Hall has been managed by a private contractor. The information Mr Mulcahy was seeking was, in fact, information held by that independent contractor. He would know, from his experience in business, that you cannot release information, one, you do not have and, two, without the permission of the private contractor who has it. Secondly, with respect to this, he accused me of not being able to make comment on something somebody else had said. I suggest an examination of the standing orders, because they preclude that.
I recall a recent comment that so far in the Assembly there have been about 1,100 questions on notice. That has to be a record as well. I had a little look recently to see the extent to which any of those questions have been put to any good use; to see whether there was a suggestion to the government to change a given thrust or anything like that. Not a thing. The amounts of activity following questions on notice and the answers thereto have been singularly lacking. This lends itself to my laziness tag, accusing other members of being a tad on that side.
I listened to what Dr Foskey said, and I have to say, Mr Speaker—
Mr Smyth: Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Will the minister come to the line item, which is the executive and how its money is spent, given he pointed out that the Leader of the Opposition supposedly did not.
Mr Hargreaves interjecting—
MR SPEAKER: Order! Mr Hargreaves, I have just had a point of order raised.
Mr Smyth: The point of order is relevance. It is the line item relating to the executive. He is having a general spray at the opposition. The hypocrisy of standing up and suggesting that Mr Stefaniak had not done it when he actually is not doing it—
Mr Stanhope: What did Bill Stefaniak do for 20 minutes? Talk about hypocrisy!
Mr Smyth: You can raise a point of order if you want.
MR SPEAKER: Order! I will rule on the point of order. Members of the government are entitled to respond to what Mr Stefaniak said in relation to this particular line item.
MR HARGREAVES: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I respond to something Dr Foskey was saying. If I can interpret her correctly, she was exhorting us all to be more cooperative, to have a more discursive—
Opposition members interjecting—
MR SPEAKER: Order! Mr Hargreaves has the floor.
MR HARGREAVES: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Dr Foskey was trying to exhort us all to be a little bit more consultative—amongst each other, the executive, the opposition,
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .