Page 260 - Week 01 - Thursday, 27 February 2014
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back and say, “Look, we heard all of this stuff, these are the areas we agree on,” and then, if they want to go along those lines, Mr Smyth would make some dissenting or additional comments, and perhaps Ms Berry would have done the same. Then we would have the benefit of the collective views of the Assembly. If they want to put additional views, so be it. That goes to the heart of all of the bluster we have heard this morning about the fact that this is some attempt to undermine the committee system. I simply do not share that view.
I come from a party that values consensus and is able to work through things in a way that is about collaboration and getting good outcomes. It is embedded in our DNA that that is the way we get on and get things done. There is no reason why the committees in this place cannot do the same thing, unless there are members who are determined to prove that it cannot work. I suspect that is probably the case here. They are so determined to prove that it cannot work that they will not let it work. That is what is going on here. There is no reason why these committees cannot produce reports and then have additional or extra comments or dissenting comments, whatever form they end up being.
The Administration and Procedure Committee is going to need to do some work. The fact that we are getting deadlocks and members not even having the capability and the wherewithal to work together to produce some common ground reflects very poorly on the contribution of members that are creating those deadlocks.
I will be supporting Mr Corbell’s amendment today because it will bring forward the work that has been done. Frankly, this should not have needed to be brought to the Assembly. The committees should have been able to say, “Look, we’ve got these extra bits of material that we each want to add and we’ll table all of it”. We are able to resolve this this morning, and I will be supporting Mr Corbell’s amendment.
MS BERRY (Ginninderra) (10.55): I will speak to the amendment and close the debate. I am disappointed that Mr Smyth has said just now that he is very happy to table his report. When the suggestion was made in the committee that perhaps we could consider both documents together and a motion was moved, he voted it down. Yet here he is today saying, “No, it’s all right, I want everybody to see what I have been doing.” But he could not work on it in the committee.
Mr Smyth: You refused to agree with anything in our report.
MS BERRY: I will talk to that, Madam Speaker. Mr Smyth accused me of failing in my chairing of that committee. He presented a document, and I thought the best course of action to allow the committee to consider that document was to adjourn to give people time to consider a document tabled at a meeting of the committee. I do not think that was failing in my position as the chair. I think it was a very sensible decision to give people an opportunity to go through that document and give it special consideration. That is what committees are there for.
I did not fail; I think I did the right thing. We went away, we considered the document, we came back, but other people on the committee could not come to an agreement. We got the advice that said that we could work together, except that two of the committee members from that side of the chamber just could not come to the party.
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