Page 697 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 5 July 1989
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at least are in the course of being addressed, by the Administration and Procedures Committee. Of course, you are aware of that, as chairman of that committee, Mr Speaker.
The Chief Minister referred, to the terms of reference of that committee, standing order 16(a). Only three or four weeks ago the committee in a meeting considered the question of reform of the standing orders and decided that that review should occur and indeed resolved - and I believe the minutes of that meeting clearly show that it was resolved - that the standing orders should be reviewed by the committee during the winter recess, which will start in about three weeks.
It decided on that course of action because there was a need, it felt, to examine carefully and calmly all the issues surrounding the standing orders but also to allow that to happen after the standing orders had been allowed to run on for some period. By the time the winter recess begins, we will have had two or two and a half months' operation of those standing orders. We will have some idea of how successful or unsuccessful they might have been. I think that would be an appropriate time to begin the task to which Mr Collaery has referred. But I say of this motion, to use the words of Macbeth, "Thou showest me the way that I was going".
I do not believe it is necessary, on top of what the committee has already decided to do about standing orders, for us to take any particular direction from the whole Assembly in this matter. We do allow, I think, standing committees to set their own terms of reference, to some extent. The committee has already taken up this issue. Let us not bring these issues up on the floor as well, as a way of cutting across that process. I believe that what we have already in place is adequate.
MR SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr Humphries, for that statement on my behalf, as well as yours.
MR JENSEN (12.28): Mr Speaker, as my colleague Mr Collaery has said, this motion also provides an opportunity for us to express our thanks to those members of the staff who were involved in preparing and developing the standing orders. We have already heard the Chief Minister argue yesterday for open and responsive government in relation to the bringing down of the Fitzgerald report.
The Rally considers that standing orders are the key by which a government can control the business of the Assembly. As my colleague Mr Collaery has said, these standing orders were designed for a parliament where a firm majority was held by the government. It has been clear for some time that this would not be the case, and the electoral system very quickly disabused anyone that a majority government could be formed. These orders are designed to facilitate the passage of government business
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