Page 736 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 5 July 1989
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
resources of this Assembly, not only the members but also the secretariat, and it falls fairly and squarely within the role of the Government to do its own inquiries into some of these matters and to bring the results of its inquiries forward to the Assembly for consideration.
I really believe that this is another example where the Government, using all of the resources that it has available to it, should be carrying out this investigation. If it acknowledges that there is even a likelihood of the kind of problem that we have been attempting to say exists - and this motion implies that it acknowledges these things - then it has the resources within its departments to examine these matters and to come forward then with a definition of the problem.
Debate interrupted.
ADJOURNMENT
MR SPEAKER: Order! It being 4.30 pm, I propose the question:
That the Assembly do now adjourn.
Mr Whalan: Mr Speaker, I request that the question be put forthwith without debate.
Question resolved in the negative.
SOCIAL POLICY - STANDING COMMITTEE
Debate resumed.
MR KAINE: I will not take much longer. I think that the Government should be attempting to identify the problem and then come forward with an identification of the nature and extent of the problem and its proposed solutions to it, which the Assembly can then debate and about which it can agree or disagree. So I think it is not a question of whether the study needs to be done; of course it needs to be done. The lengthy debate this morning on Mr Stefaniak's Bill demonstrated quite clearly that there is a requirement to examine the root cause of the problem.
What we are dealing with in the short term is the symptom, but there are clearly underlying problems and they need to be identified. We need to quantify them in some way so that we know the phenomenon with which we are dealing. Then we need some solutions put forward - of course we do; I am not denying that. But the question is whether it is fair to expect the members of this Assembly and the secretariat staff to take on more and more of these studies when clearly the Government has the resources available to
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .