Page 2688 - Week 09 - Thursday, 8 August 2013
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It is worth noting at this point that, perhaps as a consequence of Mr Rattenbury deciding to go into the ministry, he has decided not to sit on any committees. That means that, regardless of the merits of his taking a ministry, the causal effect has been that there has been no crossbench member available to sit on committees, and that has been a significant contributing factor in where we are here. When we see the sort of Wally motions that are being brought forward today on federal issues by the Greens minister, you would have to ask why he is doing that sort of stuff in his office, when he has nearly $1 million to run it, instead of contributing to committees as he could be. With respect to further advice, it states:
The membership of standing committees is governed by standing order 221, which requires that overall membership of the committees shall comprise representatives of all groups and parties in the Assembly as near as practicable to be proportional to the representation in the Assembly.
I do note that. The other question I asked is:
Can the committee system be restructured to bring it in line with past practice?
The advice is:
In analysing the previous committees that have existed since self-government, it became apparent that the committee system established in the Eighth Assembly was fundamentally different to the committees established in previous Assemblies. If you wish to bring the committee system into line with what has been the most prevalent previous practice of the Assembly, I would suggest you move to establish three-member committees with opposition majorities on each but retaining some government chairs.
I would note that that is what I have moved today in my motion, so that there would be a non-government majority on each of the committees but the chairs who are currently government members—and a majority of the committees have government chairs; we only have two chairs—would remain. It is not so much about who the chair is; it is about who has the majority. That is the important part of maintaining the effectiveness of the committees. The Clerk’s advice went further with regard to Latimer House principles:
I should add that the proposed change to the committee structure would bring it more into line with the commitment to Latimer House principles which the Assembly adopted as a continuing resolution on 11 December 2008.
I note that that was a particular motion that was brought forward by the Greens from 2008. They were champions of Latimer House principles back then. So it will be very interesting to see whether Mr Rattenbury is still a champion of Latimer House principles or whether his view has changed. We will wait and see. To quote from that, “The promotion of zero tolerance for corruption is vital to good governance.” And this is from the continuing resolution:
A transparent and accountable government, together with freedom of expression, encourages the full participation of its citizens in the democratic process.
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