Page 5933 - Week 14 - Thursday, 8 December 2011
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MR SPEAKER: I will consult my—
MS BRESNAN: Mr Speaker, I am happy to withdraw that.
MR SPEAKER: Thank you, Ms Bresnan.
MS BRESNAN: I will go to the claims that Mrs Dunne has made later on in my speech. The operation and functioning of the administration and procedures committee in the smoothest way possible is essential to sitting weeks in particular. While the committee does not deal with the usual politics of sitting weeks, the committee can ensure that issues are discussed in the pre-sitting and sitting week meetings and particularly when items of business will be debated. While I recognise that the party whips discuss such matters as a matter of course during each sitting day, as the committee determines the order of business for private members’ day and Assembly business, it is important to be able to have discussions on issues of timing with some authority. It is much easier if these discussions can be had in committee meetings.
As I understand it, in other Assemblies the party whips have been members of the committee. This is because of the types of matters that the committee discusses, especially around the timing of business. As Mrs Dunne has said, there are no rules, but it has been the practice that it is the whip that sits on the committee, and I think for very good reason. I have outlined the way in which business is determined and the timing of business. If we cannot have those discussions in those committee meetings then it makes it quite difficult. That, I think, has happened on a number of occasions in this Assembly.
In this Assembly the Liberal Party whip, Mr Hanson, has not been a member of the committee. The Liberal representative has been the manager of opposition business, Mrs Dunne. As I have just noted, this has created some difficulties with matters discussed in the committee, particularly around the order of business on sitting days. As I have said, if you cannot have these discussions with any degree of authority then it makes it quite difficult in terms of the way the sitting week functions.
In order to allow the proper operation of the committee the membership of the committee should be as per previous Assemblies with the party whips as members. I believe it is important to establish this formally through Mr Hargreaves’s motion today. It means that this convention can be established for future ACT Assemblies also.
The committee, as noted in the standing orders, is established to inquire into and report on the Assembly’s annual estimates of expenditure, the practice and procedure of the Assembly and the standing orders of the Assembly. Each of these areas is about how the Assembly—that is, the chamber itself—functions, which is the realm of the party whips. The Greens agree that in order for the committee to function as it was established to do, having the whips as the set members will make for the better operation of the committee and, consequently, the Assembly, particularly during sitting weeks.
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