Page 303 - Week 01 - Thursday, 11 December 2008
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When you consider what the sitting weeks are—and I note that they are only three days, not five days, which is the normal working week—to be honest, that was somewhat of a surprise to me as I transitioned from my previous career into working in the Assembly. I note that there are other parliaments throughout the world and, indeed, in Australia where a four-day sitting week is actually the norm.
That 42 days, then, that the government is proposing for us to sit constitutes 42 days, which is only 12 per cent of the year. So, by any measure, you could not argue that we are sitting an inordinate amount of time, with 14 weeks. To increase that to 16, I think, would be only a small increase that would go some way to meeting community expectations.
I do understand that there is other work that this Assembly does, in committees, and I understand that the executive also is busy. But to say that 12 per cent of the year only would be taken up with sitting, I think, is unreasonable; it should be more.
I move to community expectations. I think all of the members who are new—eight of us who have come from both the public sector and the private sector—would agree that we would be used to a longer working pattern than that. I use my own experience to draw on. In defence, the average working year has 42 days for leave. So what we are proposing here is that the bulk of our work would be done in a period that is normally allocated in many sectors for leave. If you look at other areas in the public service or private industry, they actually only have four weeks allocated for holidays. So I think that an important part of what we do here is meeting public expectations, and we will fail in that regard if we have only 14 weeks of sitting.
One of the reasons put to me by the crossbench when we had our discussions was the issue of school holidays. I must admit I am quite surprised to find that we will work around school holidays. I cannot think of any other industry in Australia that would make sure that all of its members were free on school holidays. Certainly, that would not confirm to the community norm.
We heard a great deal of criticism yesterday aimed at the opposition from the government about taking holidays. We heard vigorous debate and, in some cases, abusive language used: we are on holiday, in bed and so on. It is interesting, then, to note, that the work pattern proposed by the government would allocate them so much holiday. Between when the Assembly last sat in August and when it will next sit in February, other than this week, is 5½ months. If anyone thinks that that is a pattern of working hard that is being set by this government, then that would be unusual. I would contend that, if this is the sitting pattern that is going to be adopted by this Assembly, then it is the government that is looking to take extended holidays, certainly not the opposition, which is calling for more sitting weeks.
Why is it that the Assembly is so important? It is the primary tool of the Assembly to conduct its business. It is where questions are asked of ministers and, in the new era of open debate that we were calling for here in the Assembly, it is the most important tool whereby ministers can be questioned. It goes to the heart of accountability and scrutiny. It is where bills are debated; it is where we can consider bills that are put forward and debate them in an open forum.
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