Page 874 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 20 March 2012
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Eventually we got a letter from Dr Bourke, I think on 16 March. These amendments have been in this form since 14 February. On 16 March the scrutiny of bills committee finally got a letter from Dr Bourke asking, “Can you consider these amendments?” As it turned out, they were not complex. These matters were dealt with by the adviser. The committee met yesterday—out of session, again—to deal with this matter that could have been dealt with in session last Thursday if these people had got their act together. It was not for want of trying on my part to get them to put the amendments in to the committee.
Then, after the committee had met and resolved to table a 246A statement today, I received a phone call, quite late in the evening—it was after 5 o’clock—from one of the staff members of the manager of government business. She was pretty embarrassed, and I was probably a little short with her. I think I apologised, but I apologise again, because it was not her fault. She rang to ask me whether we could consider doing another bill this morning rather than the portable long service leave amendment bill because Dr Bourke’s office was unclear about whether the scrutiny committee had signed off on the amendments, and if the scrutiny committee had not signed off on them, we could not deal with it. Again, they were wrong. Dr Bourke only had to stand up here and suspend standing orders if he thought it was so important. As it turned out, we did not need to suspend standing orders, but it means that Dr Bourke’s office need to talk to people. They need to understand the procedures in this place and they need to get it right.
This is not the first time that my office has got Dr Bourke’s staff out of a fine mess. When we sat in this place in the last sitting period and debated—
Mr Corbell: I’m glad we’re having a debate about the policy content of the bill. Why don’t you talk about the policy in the bill?
MRS DUNNE: I have talked about the policy of the bill. You were not listening. When we sat in this place last time and debated Ms Bresnan’s bill, I had to sort of coach Dr Bourke’s staff through the procedures, and they still got it wrong. They still agreed to provisions in Ms Bresnan’s bill that they did not want to pass, and it was only when I pointed out to them that they had got it wrong that the matter had to be recommitted for debate and we had to go back and delete provisions which Dr Bourke had agreed to only a couple of hours before.
Dr Bourke is a new minister and he is a new member, and that is fair enough, but his staff are not. They are seriously long-term members of the staff in this place with many years behind them, and they cannot get the procedures right. There has been a lot of criticism around this place about what our staff do. There have been criticisms of one staff member because he happens to be the President of the Liberal Party. I ask you, Madam Deputy Speaker: what does the President of the Labor Party, who works inside this building—the Chief Minister said, “He works inside the building”—do? He works inside the building, but he does not seem to be able to get simple messages through to his minister and does not seem to be able to get simple things done about the procedure of this place. This has been a complete farce.
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