Page 688 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 5 July 1989
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consideration as well. I would, in response to the Chief Minister, say that the Standing Committee on Social Policy surely, in due course, will welcome larger areas of social justice - much larger areas, not limited to whether someone is standing on the street in a bus interchange. I do not think that is appropriate for the Social Policy Committee. I think that committee in due course, if it has time, should indeed take on some of these areas.
Finally, I do recognise the great dilemma that Mr Wood steadily puts before us. I think he is the victim of the committee system in this house. I do not know what the best possible answer is to this. Dare one even horribly suggest that one might even need a committee to look into that awful problem. But at the same time I think we will have to proceed in this manner of saying if there is a specific issue then put a few people together to look at it, hear from the public, come back and report; otherwise we will spend time, as we have this morning, doing nothing but debating issues that could be better debated in committee.
MR WHALAN (Minister for Industry, Employment and Education) (11.57): Mr Speaker, I think it is a matter of great regret and it is an interesting comment upon the Residents Rally party that for the second time in a week the Residents Rally party has moved to gag debate on an important social issue.
Mr Moore: We gagged the debate; we did that with a different standing order.
MR WHALAN: The interjection was, "We moved to gag debate but we used a different standing order". That is correct, Mr Speaker, but the effect was the same. Mr Moore was quite correct in his interjection. They are different standing orders, but the effect was the same. I am pleased to see that he concedes that the effect was the same because what was the correct procedure, and the procedure which was decided by agreement between the parties yesterday and endorsed by the Standing Committee on Administration and Procedures at its meeting last night, as was reported by my colleague Mr Wood, was that debate on this matter would proceed. I understand there was consideration that, once the Bill in principle had been debated, when it came to the detail stage the opportunities would arise for actions such as the one supported by the Government, which is that it be referred to the Social Policy Committee or, as an alternative but what I believe is the incorrect course of action, the one which has been chosen by the Residents Rally party.
But the effect of it has been, Mr Speaker, to gag the Chief Minister in responding to the legislation which was tabled in this Assembly last week. The proposal that had been agreed to after consultation between all the parties was that debate would proceed with the response - and it is shown on the business paper quite clearly - the resumption
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