Page 5931 - Week 14 - Thursday, 8 December 2011
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Mr Speaker, the standing orders for the membership of other standing committees actually prescribe that the people will be placed on those committees proportional to the representation in this place. I believe that such should be the case now. I recognise that there will be occasions, and indeed we are seeing the occasion now, where one of the whips, or any number of them for that matter, may very well carry the role of the manager of business for their particular sector. I see no reason why there will be any conflict in that role in assisting in the administration of the precinct or the assistance to the Speaker in the administration of the precinct.
We have in this place, as I have mentioned earlier, changed the standing orders to reflect a formal process within this place. We have changed the nature of question time on a couple of occasions. We have changed the standing orders to reflect the standard of behaviour in this place. I believe that now is the time, in fact, at the end of a particular year and going into 2012 that we address this particular issue. This is about formalising a role.
I believe that as whips have been given the recognition through the Remuneration Tribunal of an allowance for their role in assisting the parliament—assisting the Speaker specifically and assisting their parliamentary groupings—they are actually being paid for a service that they render. I believe that we should have on our house committee, if you like—the administration and procedure committee—members who are recognised for the service that they render to that committee. That recognition should be the allowance that whips receive through the determinations by the Remuneration Tribunal. I commend this motion to the Assembly, Mr Speaker.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (11.33): The Canberra Liberals will be opposing this motion, not on the grounds that they particularly think that the position on administration and procedure must be held by me but on the grounds that each party grouping must have as much choice as possible in the people that they appoint to standing committees. On that basis we will be opposing this motion.
As Mr Smyth will see if he goes through the companion to the Legislative Assembly, there have never been any rules about who was appointed to any committee, with the exception of the appointment of the Speaker as the chairman of the administration and procedure committee. Mr Hargreaves likes to point out his long history in this place. There has been quite a deal of volatility concerning the membership and size of standing committees. There has also been considerable volatility in relation to members of the administration and procedure committee over time. I think that we go down a difficult path if we start constraining who can be appointed. At the moment we have three groupings in this place, but it is more often the case that we have more than three groupings and that often a number of different and disparate groupings are represented on the crossbench.
I can tell from the arguments being mounted by Mr Hargreaves that this is an attempt to shore up the position of Greens whip so that the Greens will be able to make an appeal to the Remuneration Tribunal for payment for that position. A good way of doing it would be to ensure that there was some recognition in the standing orders or elsewhere that would give some status to that position. This is an unfortunate money-
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