Page 4927 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 25 October 2011
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minister will seek leave to suspend standing orders so that we can deal with these things today.” It was as I predicted, but they did not actually realise until half past nine this morning when somebody else told them that this was what they had to do. My office was notified this morning at a quarter to 10 that they were not ready to deal with the matter, as it was listed to come on first at 10 o’clock, because they had not got their act together.
This is a piece of legislation that this minister has been trumpeting and advocating for for well over a year, and she cannot get the basics right. I think it is disrespectful to the Assembly. It is disrespectful to the Assembly staff that they were running around this morning trying to get this right. How many people are there on SES salaries who are supposed to have experience in the operation of these things and who are supposed to oversee the passage of bills in this place? Nobody twigged until half past nine or a quarter to 10 this morning that they had a problem.
That is why we are not prepared to support this motion today. That is why we will not give leave. That is why we do not think standing orders should be suspended. This minister needs to learn how to do her job. This minister needs, first of all, to apologise. She did not come in here and apologise at any time. She said, “Mrs Dunne is the only one in this place who never makes a mistake.” Well, Mrs Dunne makes mistakes all the time. When Mrs Dunne makes mistakes she admits it and she apologises. That is what this minister should do. She should have been in here this morning first and foremost to apologise to the Assembly for getting it wrong and for messing it up. Through the Assembly, she should have apologised to the staff who had to run around and fix up her mess this morning. We will not support the suspension of standing orders.
MS BRESNAN (Brindabella) (5.04): We will be supporting the suspension of standing orders. Mrs Dunne pointed out that the scrutiny of bills committee did raise concerns about receiving the amendments as a package. I note that point, but I think it is also worth noting that these amendments actually went to scrutiny; they have been before scrutiny. They are technical amendments. They are basically around changing the working date. We are talking about a very minor thing and that needs to be kept in mind.
Mrs Dunne has, I think, made quite an attack on the department. The department have done quite an extraordinary amount of work in getting through this bill. It has been a very difficult process, as I noted. When the bill first came to be debated, the Greens did not support it at that stage because we thought a lot more work needed to be done. In defence of the department, they have done quite a bit of work on this. They have listened to the concerns that have been put forward by the community. I think that needs to be recognised.
What also needs to be recognised is that the community have put a lot of work into this bill—community groups like the ones I mentioned in my speech on Ms Burch’s amendments. Basically, this is something the community just wants to get on with. I take the point that Mrs Dunne has made, but we should not be allowing something which has been essentially a process point—yes, there have been problems with that—to delay this important piece of legislation and to disregard, I think, the work
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