Page 1552 - Week 05 - Thursday, 15 May 2014
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MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (10.48): Madam Speaker, I am not surprised that Mr Rattenbury brings forward such a motion this morning. He did not support what is in the current standing orders under standing order 241 when we had the debate on the motion of no confidence in Mr Corbell for having in his possession information about what had gone on inside a committee or, indeed, yesterday, the debate on whether we should have a privilege committee established to look at what had gone on.
Mr Rattenbury, you establish an alibi; you say that you are reasonable, you are moving on and you are improving the process. Nobody has actually made a case that the current process does not work. It is just that some people in this place will not uphold the standing orders as they exist.
It is reasonable for admin and procedures to look at the standing orders to see if we can improve how they work, but no case has been made that standing order 241 is not working. Standing order 241 has worked in one form or another for the last 25 years. Until recently, the committee system has also worked pretty well under the standing orders. It is in the life of this Assembly that we have had problems. We will have debates about why the standing orders work or why they do not work, but it is incumbent upon members to make sure that we uphold the standing orders. It was quite clear that there was a case, and a good case made, that the standing orders had been breached. None of us will be any the wiser as to what happened and how Mr Corbell had information that he should not have had and used that information in this place when he should not have had it in the first place.
But what if we have an Assembly that will not uphold the existing standing orders? Let us face it. Dr Bourke had to move an amendment to the standing orders to validate the government’s position. Now Mr Rattenbury is moving amendments to the standing orders, or seeking amendments to the standing order or inquiry into the standing order, to validate the position that he has taken and allow him his continued protection of the government. That is the problem. If you start eroding the law of this place to suit the circumstances of the government of the day, it is a very sad way to go about running this place. It is the start of the slippery slope. What else would we change to suit the government because they have got the numbers on the day?
It will obviously go to admin and procedures. We will have an inquiry. But it would be interesting to see the case that standing order 241 does not work. Mr Rattenbury says that he suspects it is at odds with current practice. Cite an example, Mr Rattenbury. No case has been made here. In fact, all the cases go the other way—that the law, as it exists in standing order 241, has been breached by the government. The only people who were willing to uphold standing order 241 were the Canberra Liberals. In their inimitable way, the Greens have sought to either avoid the issue or, now, simply move to protect the government.
Admin and procedures can have a look at it, but anything we do in admin and procedures on the standing orders in this place will only survive and will only work if members are willing to uphold them. They were clearly breached by Mr Corbell, because he spoke of things that had not been tabled. We all remember that initially he said he read them online. This is from somebody who has been here for a long time—Mr Corbell, the senior member of the place. They have never been published online; he knows that, and he should have known that.
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