Page 2807 - Week 07 - Thursday, 7 June 2012
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MR HARGREAVES (Brindabella) (11.01): The government will not be supporting the suspension of standing orders, and there are a number of reasons for that. I want to address one of the remarks that Mrs Dunne made. We need to know when it is we received notice of this particular motion. I got wind of the motion being submitted about 10 minutes before the ringing of the bells. That is quite insufficient notice of any motion which would come before this place and which would require leave, in my view.
Mrs Dunne accused the minister of an underhanded approach; yet she provides a motion with no time to have a tripartite discussion on its content, none whatever. There was time only just to badger Ms Le Couteur before the bells, as if Ms Le Couteur has not got something better to do on a budget reply day than to try to digest a case for why this needs to be done today. That is linked with something which is a little serious. This motion that she has supplied today directs the government to do something. Beyond that, Mrs Dunne said there is an item on the—
Mrs Dunne: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker.
MR HARGREAVES: Madam Deputy Speaker, could you stop the clocks, please?
Mrs Dunne: Mr Hargreaves is now debating whether it is appropriate that the government be directed. That is a substantive matter and not a matter for whether the standing orders should be suspended.
MR HARGREAVES: On the point of order, I take Mrs Dunne’s point and that is why I stopped and went to another point. She is quite correct.
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Will you just stick to the point please, Mr Hargreaves?
MR HARGREAVES: And I am on a completely different point, which is about whether we should suspend standing orders.
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you.
MR HARGREAVES: It worries me when we see motions coming forward which have the possibility of anticipating debate. I am not talking about the content of the motion here but in fact what Mrs Dunne said in her speech. She said that the item is on the notice paper. But my search of the notice paper, unless I am dreadfully mistaken, is that the only item on the notice paper that could be related to this is the appropriation bills; in which case we are anticipating debate on something which could happen in the appropriation bill debate.
Mrs Dunne: Assembly business, order of the day No 8.
MR HARGREAVES: I heard Mrs Dunne in silence and she has demonstrated how rude she is, again. The way in which she attacked the Greens in her plea to suspend standing orders was, in my view, unacceptable. She has said you cannot negotiate with the Greens. Mrs Dunne would know, in the context of suspending—
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