Page 2483 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 17 June 2009
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time the opposition asks a question about something, they turn it around and say, “Okay, you are opposed to that,” and, “When will you come on board with”—insert the name of project here.
But the debate today is not about any of those things. It is not about the government’s narrative about the Liberal Party. This is not a motion about the project—the desirability or undesirability of a car park at the hospital. This is not about the planning act. This is not even about the Minister for Planning’s decision to call in a project. This is not about the government’s billion-dollar health infrastructure project. It is not about any of those things. It is not about any of the things that the Chief Minister or the Deputy Chief Minister spoke about. It is about a member who refused to respond to the summons of a duly constituted committee of this place.
A committee of the Legislative Assembly, when it is acting, acts on behalf of the Legislative Assembly. The standing orders are very simple. They state:
If a committee desires the attendance of a Member as a witness, the Chair of the committee shall, in writing, request that Member to attend; should the Member refuse to come, or to give evidence or information as a witness to the committee, the committee shall advise the Assembly, and not again request the Member to attend …
The committee did everything by the book. I was not a member of the committee, but having read the discussion, it is clear that they decided that it was necessary to call back two ministers to ask questions. The committee decided this. All the members present participated in that decision making. Nowhere does it say that a majority of the committee decided or anything like that. This is a decision of the committee and there is a recommendation of the committee that accompanies the decision of this committee as a result of what happened in the committee process. This is about a member’s failure to comply with the request of a duly constituted committee of this place. It is about nothing more than that, and certainly nothing less. It is not about any of the other things that these ministers want to talk about.
What happened was that the minister refused to attend when he was asked by the chairman of the committee in accordance with the standing orders. The committee has drawn this to the attention of the Assembly, as set out in the standing orders, and it is now for this Assembly to decide whether or not the member who failed to comply with the request should be punished in some way, shape or form.
The Liberal opposition has put forward a proposal that this member should be censured. There are a range of options open to the Assembly, and possibly the lowest one is censure. It seems to be pitched at about the right level because if this matter had gone through a privileges process, which is probably one of the other options, you would end up in the same situation where it is clear that the member has held the committee in contempt. The committee has said this itself in its narrative and it has asked the Assembly to take the matter further.
The Liberal opposition believes that this member should be censured because that is the standard form of the house. It is the standard form of practice in the House of Representatives and in other parliaments on which we model ourselves. I think that it
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