Page 2159 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 21 June 2011
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for Police and Emergency Services) (7.52): The government will not be supporting the motion. The matter in relation to Bimberi will be brought to the Assembly and there will be an opportunity for the Assembly to consider the issue before the current scheduled reporting date of the Human Rights Commission, which is the end of this month. It is 21 June, well before the end of the month. There is a full sitting fortnight in which the Assembly can consider that matter.
The government has indicated that the bills on the notice paper this evening are the priority for the government. They need to be debated; they need to be considered by this place. They are the highest priority. Other matters will be put to the Assembly either in this sitting week or the next sitting week, including the matter that Mrs Dunne raises. They are not the priority for tonight and the Liberal Party should cease wasting the Assembly’s time and allow these bills to progress for debate and vote by the Assembly.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (7.53): There is a contradiction. It is the government’s program. The government presumably put these three pieces of work before the Assembly.
Mr Corbell: We are entitled to change our minds.
Mr Seselja: Not arbitrarily.
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Mr Hargreaves): Order, members! Mr Seselja and Mr Corbell! Mr Smyth has the floor.
MR SMYTH: Presumably the government put them on the program for today because they thought they were important. I am not sure whether the committees have been consulted about this change; the Liberal Party certainly were not. It does go to courtesy, as I was discussing earlier. Mr Corbell came over to this side of the chamber just before the tea break and told the Liberal Party that the government were doing such and such. I mentioned to him that a little courtesy in a request would probably see his request acceded to, but Mr Corbell, in his own way, could not deliver that courtesy. He simply said, “We are just doing it,” to which I said, “I am quite happy to take up as much time as possible to teach the manager of government business some basic courtesy.”
These items are important items. I know that a number of people today have been discussing, for instance, the Bimberi Youth Justice Centre and the need to amend the reporting date. I suspect that none of the three items would have taken particularly long. I cannot imagine that Ms Porter was going to take much time. I cannot imagine that the alteration to the standing committees would have taken much time, and it would have accommodated the new member. And I would not have thought that the move to change the reporting date was that difficult.
There is generally, and it often happens from Mr Corbell, a lack of communication. The whip and the manager of opposition business were not informed of this. We were not informed before dinner. The Chief Minister has just given a speech about new levels of accountability. How about accountability and courtesy to the Assembly?
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