Page 5869 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 7 December 2010
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pass all these bills this week, we will somehow forgo revenue from the commonwealth. We simply should not be in this situation. I think the government could do a better job in managing its business so that we do not come to the final sitting week of the year in this position, particularly when we have had other weeks when we have finished early. To find ourselves in this situation is unfortunate, and that is why we will be taking each of these bills on their merits, and looking at the complexity of the bills, the level of controversy in the legislation and the consequences of not passing a particular bill.
I just want to flag that general approach. At this stage, I do not think we will be suspending standing orders, in the sense that I think we can deal with each bill as it comes up.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for the Environment, Climate Change and Water, Minister for Energy and Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (4.15): This is a very clever artifice on the part of Mrs Dunne to enable her to speak on a bill when she is not ready to speak on the bill. The standing orders in this place are quite clear. If you are ready to debate a bill then you stand up and debate the bill when it is called on. If you are not ready to debate a bill then you seek to adjourn debate on the bill.
What Mrs Dunne wants to do is to have her say about what she is unhappy about with this bill but then not debate it. It is an artifice. It is a very clever construct—I will give her that—but it does not accord with the forms of this place. Nor is it in the spirit of the standing orders in this place, which is that if you want to debate a bill you make sure you are organised to debate the bill. You do not try and have it both ways, which is what Mrs Dunne is doing. So the government will not be supporting the suspension of the standing orders.
That said, Mr Assistant Speaker, I make a very brief observation, cognisant of the question before the chair, and that is that the standing orders in this place require that bills not be introduced and debated in the same sitting. That is what the standing orders require. Obviously, members should at all times seek to anticipate what matters will be coming forward and prepare themselves accordingly. To that end, the government provides advance notice of those bills that it wishes to debate in the forthcoming sitting period through a meeting that I regularly convene ahead of the sitting week in question.
The government has given notice that these bills are intended to be brought on for debate. There is a range of reasons for doing so. I think it is difficult for the opposition to claim that having had three weeks to seek a briefing on these bills and to understand their implications and be ready to debate to them is in some way insufficient. We are talking about nearly a month since the bill has been introduced.
These two bills are not complex. They are not large bills. In fact, they are very small bills. The JACS bill itself is effectively non-contentious in its nature. The firearms bill makes one change. There are only two clauses in the Firearms Amendment Bill. These are not complex bills. They are straightforward bills. If the opposition cannot be bothered to prepare in order to debate these bills they should not be frustrating the rest of the Assembly in dealing with this business.
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