Page 1059 - Week 06 - Thursday, 27 July 1989
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MR WHALAN: Now, Mr Speaker, I think it is important to bear in mind that in several comments made in the chamber yesterday it was suggested that the Government was seeking to deny the democratic process by putting forward this proposal of sitting days, that it was seeking to deny the opportunity for members of the Assembly to participate in the affairs of the Assembly, that there was some undemocratic or antidemocracy aspect of this particular proposal of the Government.
I would draw your attention, Mr Speaker, and that of members to the table which has been distributed. You will see the figures for the State parliaments of New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia, Queensland, the Northern Territory and Tasmania. They cover their sitting patterns for the same half of the year - July to December. In the case of all those assemblies the sitting pattern has been averaged over the period 1984 to 1988. You will see that over that particular period the pattern proposed by the Government is 33 days, compared to a sitting pattern in the Northern Territory of 12.8 days. The next closest to the ACT, the Tasmanian Legislative Council, had an average of 27.2 sitting days. So, quite clearly, the pattern that we have proposed here is a pattern of sitting days which exceeds all the other State chambers, both lower houses and upper houses.
I might add that the pattern which we have proposed is three days shorter than the pattern which had been proposed by Mr Kaine in his correspondence to the Chief Minister. It is a generous pattern with plenty of opportunity for the members of the Assembly to participate fully in the democratic processes within this chamber.
Sometimes there is a certain suggestion or a certain embarrassment on the part of members that, because they are not sitting in this chamber, they will be perceived as not doing any work. I would challenge any people who hold that particular view, whether they be in this chamber or outside the chamber, to ask, for example, Dr Kinloch, who has just tabled his report on the tertiary institutions, or to ask Mr Humphries and the members of his committee, who just yesterday tabled their report on the casino.
Committee work places an enormous burden on members. It is an enormous and a very significant responsibility for members of the chamber and it takes up an enormous amount of time. From the reports which we have seen tabled from the committees so far, the quality of the work which is done there justifies the amount of time which is put into that committee work.
In order to allow the committees to meet commitments, I know that they have all had sittings at weekends and at nights to extend the amount of time that they require. At the moment we have references before all the committees and there are a further two references. We have got two select
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