Page 5671 - Week 15 - Thursday, 10 December 2009
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extent that he has gone to the extraordinary length of seeking to shut Mrs Dunne down halfway through her speech against this motion of Mr Corbell’s.
I put it to all members of the Assembly that we should not allow the government to simply call the tune and treat this Assembly in the same way as they treated it when they had a majority. They treated it with absolute disdain when they had a majority, and they are seeking to do the same thing now. It is evident in this move to shut down the debate. It is evident in Mr Corbell’s move to gag Mrs Dunne, and I would put it to all members of the Assembly that they should support Mrs Dunne’s motion to suspend standing orders so that we can complete this debate and get on with other business.
If Mr Corbell had not moved this, he could have had the chance now to respond. He could have by now had 10 minutes to respond to the arguments that Mrs Dunne had put. Perhaps he felt that his arguments were not strong enough. Perhaps he felt that he did not have much to contribute. Given that is the case, he should allow other members to contribute; he should allow the debate to take its course; and he should allow this motion to continue.
MS HUNTER (Ginninderra—Parliamentary Convenor, ACT Greens) (12.02): The Greens today will not be supporting the suspension of standing orders. We are supporting the adjournment. And this in no way reflects on the importance of the motion or that we do not support what Mrs Dunne has brought forward.
Mr Coe: How can you say that? How can you possibly say that?
MS HUNTER: If you would be quiet, you might hear what I have to say. There are some very important matters in relation to committees. We do share some of those concerns. We understand the incredible importance of committee work in the Assembly and that that work can only be carried out if the Assembly has access to information and has questions on notice, or whatever other queries are put forward, answered in a timely manner. This is all incredibly important.
But I think there are a couple of things that do need to be drawn out here. One is that we do have some important business on the agenda today. I know that our party whip did go around to have this discussion this morning. We believed that Mrs Dunne was in agreement with an adjournment of this matter. The situation is that this government has taken a couple of items of business off the agenda today so that we can get through other items by the end of the day. We do understand the importance, as I said, of this motion and we are quite supportive of what the motion is attempting to get at.
But we also believe that it can be debated in February. What we all know is that committees do not have hearings over January. We know that this place pretty much closes down as far as committee business goes, as far as public hearings and so forth are concerned. So it is a nonsense to say that we cannot come back in February, then debate this matter and have whatever comes forward set up for the new year. It does not need to be done today. It is a nonsense to say that everything will fall apart if we do not get this through today.
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