Page 594 - Week 02 - Thursday, 20 March 2014
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proposal which has been adopted already. At the same time, Mr Smyth put forward what could be considered a refinement. During the inquiry, we looked at Mr Smyth’s amendments, which in some places shadowed what Dr Bourke was doing but in a longer and more detailed way. As a result, we have come to a conclusion.
It is not a conclusion that sits easily with everyone. Mr Gentleman—I am sure it is no secret, and I think he is going to speak—has reservations about some of this. Mr Smyth has reservations on other parts. But I think we have a clear way forward. I think that in the future, if we get to a situation where a committee cannot report—which I hope we do not—we will be able to avoid what happened recently with draft variation 308. Rather, there will be a simple report that says: “The committee cannot report. Here is a copy of our deliberations on this.” So we will not have the farcical situation that we had with draft variation 308, where we had a report like that to which was appended dissenting comments to which the government then responded. The government responded to dissenting comments and made changes to draft variation 308. It was entitled to do that, but it had hung its hat on the fact that these were recommendations of the committee. They were not; they were recommendations of an individual or individuals on the committee. It is unprecedented that we had a government responding in that way to dissenting comments.
I am putting this on notice today. We have to draw a line in the sand. We have to do better. Mr Smyth, Dr Bourke and Mr Gentleman have made suggestions that have been synthesised here into these recommendations, which I heartily recommend to the Assembly. But those of themselves are not enough. It is time we grew up and started to rebuild the trust that is necessary for an effective committee system in the ACT. I commend the report and I commend the motion that the report be adopted.
MR GENTLEMAN: (Brindabella) (10.33). The government will not be supporting this motion, but we understand that it will pass the Assembly today, with the numbers in favour of it.
First, I want to go to Mrs Dunne’s comments, especially the latter part of her commentary in regard to the changes proposed by this report in relation to what would occur through 250B of the standing orders where a committee is not able to agree on a report. Mrs Dunne said just now that if a committee is not able to agree to a report—I think she was mistaken; I do not think she meant to do this on purpose—the committee would report to the Assembly that it could not agree. The proposed change is contrary to that. It says that if the committee cannot agree, the chair of the committee will make a statement to the Assembly to that effect, with just the minutes and the transcripts of evidence.
My real concern with that, which I raised during the deliberation on this report, was that it would mean that none of the sentiment felt by any of the committee members about the work that they had done during the inquiry would be able to be reported to the Assembly. My other concern is that it is quite a deviation from the current House of Representatives Practice, which I used in my committee report for the standing committee on planning and territory and municipal services inquiry on draft variation 308. The process I used there was from House of Representatives Practice: if you could not reach agreement, you would make a report to the Assembly that you could not reach agreement. And then, as Mrs Dunne said, I attached a dissenting report.
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