Page 1245 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 23 March 2010
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whip—about that arrangement. That is the nature of the arrangements referred to in House of Representatives Practice. Arrangements are different to agreements. The agreement in this case is the parliamentary agreement that underpins the government at this time. Anything that underpins the government is something that can be asked about.
Mr Speaker, the House of Representatives Practice then goes on to look at agreements, for instance, on ministers. It actually mentions “coalition agreements on ministerial appointments”. But, again, that is different to what we have here. What we have here in the Greens-Labor agreement is a section that tells how government will be formed and conducted and then a list of promises that they expect to be funded. Those funds are taxpayers’ funds. They are not the ALP’s funds; they are not the Greens’ funds. They are funds that are appropriated through this place and they are funds which, on every other occasion, we have been able to ask questions about, except now. You have to ask why. Why is it now that we cannot ask these questions? It is because, as the scrutiny becomes harder, the agreement either becomes shakier or those involved in the agreement become more scared at the scrutiny, because the scrutiny is appropriate.
If we go to standing order 114, which you mention in your ruling, standing order 114 comes into three areas:
Questions may be put to a Minister relating to public affairs with which that Minister is officially connected, to proceedings pending in the Assembly or to any matter of administration for which that Minister is responsible.
You make comment about “questions may be put to a minister relating to public affairs for which the minister is officially connected”. I raised with you, and you acknowledged, that the ABC website reports that the Labor Party had appointed Katy Gallagher, but the report says they had appointed Deputy Chief Minister, Katy Gallagher, as the party’s liaison person. She is appointed in her role as a minister. That is subject to scrutiny. What she does in her party or as part of her party, by the section that you quote out of the House of Representatives Practice, is not subject to scrutiny and we have never asked about it. But we are quite entitled to ask what the Deputy Chief Minister gets up to. The Deputy Chief Minister, through the rem tribunal, gets paid more money for being the Deputy Chief Minister because the role carries an additional burden. With additional burden comes additional scrutiny. We are entitled to make that scrutiny.
We go on then to:
… public affairs with which that Minister is officially connected …
I asked the Clerk’s office what that meant and they said you would normally see that as something to which money was connected, public funds were connected to. The question last week was about the administration of public funds, the payment of bills to businesses in the ACT of their accounts by the ACT government. And if that is not one of the responsibilities of the Treasurer I do not know what is.
The second part of standing order 114 talks about:
… proceedings pending in the Assembly …
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