Page 737 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 5 July 1989
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
it to perform them and, in my view, should be taking the initiatives, if it sees the problem, to resolve the issues and simply ask us to endorse its solution. We will be only too happy to discuss its solution and to either agree or disagree. Hopefully we would have more than one solution; we might adopt some options in order to deal with this problem of public behaviour.
So I would argue, Mr Speaker, that Ms Follett might have done better to withdraw it and deal with it from her own resources. I would ask her to reconsider that course of action.
MR COLLAERY (4.32): Mr Speaker, the motion put forward by the Chief Minister can be, in the terms of reference, amended by the committee that sits. The terms of the inquiry can be amended by the committee, and I do not believe that we need to detain the Assembly long this afternoon discussing the actual terms. The Residents Rally regards any reference to a social policy committee, unless it is frivolous, vexatious or clearly going to the wrong place, as one that should not be blocked by this Assembly. It is a social policy issue, and social policy issues can be looked at within the powers and structure of that committee.
Mr Speaker, I have some concerns, shared by my colleague Dr Kinloch, in relation to paragraph (2) in the referral, and they are concerns that possibly the Chief Minister is seeking to duplicate in some way the actions of the select committee that has been set up to do the legal and drafting examination and perusal activities associated with a Bill that is currently before the house, known somewhat inaccurately as the move-on power Bill. There is very little move-on power left in it, Mr Speaker. It is more an attempted crime Bill. But the select committee will look at that.
The actual wording that requires a social policy committee to look at police deployment levels and so on seems odd, and I would ask the Social Policy Committee to look at that carefully to determine whether it is qualified or justified and whether it is at all relevant for a social policy committee to be looking at matters as complex and as unrelated in terms of the specificity of that referral as paragraph (2).
Nevertheless, the Rally will not, as a matter of principle, as a matter of conscience, reject a social policy referral. It would have to be an extraordinary situation for the Rally to block a motion of this kind. With those qualifications, but accepting that the motion is approved in its entirety by the Rally, the Rally will support the motion.
MR DUBY (4.35): I believe it is entirely appropriate that this matter should be forwarded to the Standing Committee on Social Policy. If there is one thing that has come out
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .