Page 685 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 23 March 1993
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MR MOORE, by leave: Madam Speaker, having listened to Mr Humphries, I am conscious that he has one prime option available to him, and that is to move a motion of lack of confidence in you as Speaker. That would give him the appropriate opportunity to air every problem that he has and to test it in this Assembly. He and his colleagues have always had that option available to them, first and foremost, (a) if they consider that you are doing an inappropriate job and (b) if they consider that there is someone in the Assembly who could do the job better. That is the first and most obvious way of dealing with the issue, Madam Speaker, and making sure that everything is out in the open in a formal manner. Whether they thought they were going to win or lose that motion is irrelevant. It would give them the opportunity to get this problem they seem to have off their chest. That is the first thing, Madam Speaker.
The other thing that I think is worth saying is that Mr Humphries pointed out that you have ruled that dissent from your ruling is not possible. A motion for suspension of so much of the standing orders as is necessary to put that motion would give them the ability to test any ruling that you put. So that option has always been available to them, Madam Speaker. The problem here is that they have, over the last year or so, taken the victim role and have felt that they really are in a position where they have not been able to do anything except to jump up and down, make noises and point the finger at somebody else. Through you, Madam Speaker, I suggest that Mr Humphries, as leader of the Opposition on the floor of the house - is that the term?
Mr Kaine: No, it is not.
MR MOORE: You have a special term for it which slips my mind. Not as Leader of the Opposition but as the new Whip you can work out ways and means of dealing with this issue. What they ought to do, as a starting point, is look at themselves.
SOCIAL POLICY - STANDING COMMITTEE
Report on Adoption Bill
MS ELLIS (9.11): Madam Speaker, I present report No. 3 of the Standing Committee on Social Policy on the Adoption Bill 1992, together with a copy of the extracts of the minutes of proceedings. This report was provided to the Speaker for circulation on Tuesday, 16 March 1993, pursuant to the resolution of the Assembly on 8 December 1992, as amended on 16 February 1993. I move:
That the report be noted.
Madam Speaker, the Social Policy Committee's inquiry into the adoption legislation referred by this Assembly in December last year is, hopefully, one of the last steps in this legislation's long journey towards becoming law. Most members will be aware of the process that the adoption legislation has followed over the past six years; but I believe that it is important to reiterate the steps followed, to put this matter into its correct context. Madam Speaker, the Adoption Bill 1992 aims to replace the Adoption Act 1965. In 1986 the Human Rights Commission conducted a review of the 1965 legislation, which
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