Page 5932 - Week 14 - Thursday, 8 December 2011
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
grab on the part of the Greens. If, as I suspect, the Greens are going to support this motion today, it will be done for the basest of reasons possible.
It has always been the case in this place that it is up to the parties concerned, and more particularly the leader of the parties concerned, to determine the membership of committees. There has only been, to my knowledge, one other attempt to circumvent the wishes of parties on who should be on committees. That was again, surprisingly, directed towards me. I was starting to think that maybe someone had got it in for me when this Assembly voted to not allow me to sit on a privileges committee. I am thinking that, apart from the base requirement of the Greens to get some money out of this, there may be a bit of a vendetta against Vicki Dunne, but I will not take it too personally. If there is a vendetta against Mrs Dunne—and I am pretty sure that Mr Hargreaves has had me in his sights for quite some time—it will be taken as a badge of honour that I have got under their skin rather than anything else.
That said, it is untoward and improper that the Assembly should attempt to force parties in the way that they nominate for committees. There has been considerable debate on this issue over a number of years. On occasions I have attempted to amend the standing orders to, for instance, appoint a nominee of the opposition to chair the public accounts committee. Even that has been resisted by the Assembly—not to nominate a particular person but just a nominee of a particular party.
Today Mr Hargreaves is attempting to force the hand of a particular grouping in this place in a way that has never been done before. In fact there is a substantial voting record. I notice that the Clerk is nodding. I hope he is nodding in agreement with me. There has been considerable debate in this place about this issue on a number of occasions. Every attempt by parties to direct other parties on how they should fill committee positions has always failed in this place. It will be very interesting today to see whether, in the pursuit of money, the Greens will be supporting this motion, which should not be supported.
MS BRESNAN (Brindabella) (11.38): I thank Mr Hargreaves for this motion today. The Greens will be supporting it. I will go to the issues that Mrs Dunne has raised. There have been some fairly grubby claims about this being some sort of money grabbing exercise by me, which I find quite offensive, but I will go to that at the end—
Mr Seselja: On a point of order, Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER: One moment. Stop the clocks, thank you.
Mr Seselja: I think you have on a number of occasions ruled on the word “grubby”. I think that you should ask Ms Bresnan to withdraw.
MR SPEAKER: I think Ms Bresnan actually referred to “grubby claims” rather than Mrs Dunne being grubby.
Mr Seselja: So that is okay?
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video