Page 703 - Week 02 - Thursday, 10 March 2011
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know unless we try. We can then properly evaluate which is the most appropriate process for the ACT Assembly. I would ask members to carefully consider the amendment that the ACT Greens have put forward today and ask that they support it.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for the Environment, Climate Change and Water, Minister for Energy and Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (10.25): I thank Ms Hunter for her detailed amendment to Mr Smyth’s proposal. Regrettably, the government will not support the proposal. I would like to take a bit of time to explain why.
It really is quite a straightforward issue from the government’s perspective. Non-executive government members are entitled to participate in the estimates process. The proposal put forward by Ms Hunter would make it extremely difficult for non-executive government members to properly participate because, as members would appreciate, there are only two non-executive government members who have to cover a very large number of the standing committees in this place. It would present some very real logistical issues for those members in being able to be physically present at all times for all of those hearings. Whilst that is an issue that I think all non-executive members face in this place to some degree, it is a much more acute problem for the two non-executive government members.
On that basis, the government has taken the view that we think Ms Hunter’s proposal is unworkable for the non-executive government members and we therefore cannot agree to it. We cannot ask the two non-executive government members to operate in an environment which would be very difficult for them to properly cover and keep track of all the issues being dealt with across numerous standing committees compared to their attendance at a single select committee. So the government will not be supporting Ms Hunter’s amendment.
In relation to the other issues raised in Mr Smyth’s motion, the government agrees that there should be a select committee. We agree with the composition as proposed by Mr Smyth, but I foreshadow—and I think members have them in front of them—that I will be moving two amendments to Mr Smyth’s motion once the Assembly has dealt with Ms Hunter’s amendment. Just to foreshadow my amendments, they deal with the issue of the chair of the committee. The government’s view is that the chair of the committee should be determined by the committee rather than by this place. Therefore, we are proposing that paragraph (3) be omitted.
In relation to the reporting date, the government is suggesting that the committee report a week earlier. The reason for that, Mr Speaker, is that it would allow the government to prepare a response to the report’s recommendations for the commencement of the sitting fortnight. We think that would be a sensible measure. It would allow members more time to consider the government response and it would potentially, if members felt they were prepared for the debate as a consequence, allow the debate on the appropriation bill to be brought forward earlier in the sitting fortnight. We think that would be a desirable course of action, rather than trying to cram it into the last sitting week of that fortnight.
That is why the government is suggesting that reporting date. I think the Assembly and the scrutiny process would benefit from having a detailed government response at
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