Page 825 - Week 03 - Thursday, 14 April 1994
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percentage of the voting public want to put forward an issue for referendum, they should be able to. If a majority of the community vote for that particular initiative, it should be taken on board by the Assembly as a matter of process. That is our policy on it. We certainly do not have a policy that suggests that referenda should be used on issues that governments just do not want to make a decision on.
The concern I have is that the Liberal Party, and Mr Lamont suggests the Labor Party as well, have been misrepresented in the preface, and on a policy issue that is not directly related to the issue of active or passive euthanasia. It was for that reason that, after reading the preface, I asked Mr Moore to add to the preface the words he has put in italics at the bottom. In the words he used - "This Preface has been prepared by the Chair and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Committee" - I thought the word "necessarily" was unnecessary. Fairly obviously, it does not reflect the views of either of the other members of the committee. I had some discussions with the Speaker on the issue of the preface. I think in the end the Speaker made a very sensible decision. It was going to be totally ridiculous to have a situation where we had 400 prefaces to this particular report - a report that I believe is very good - and that is what would have happened. Once Mr Lamont put forward a preface, I was going to have to put forward a preface. Mr Moore had made it clear that he would put forward another preface.
Mr Connolly: That is only three. There are 397 more to come.
MRS CARNELL: Mr Lamont was going to put forward another preface and then I was going to have to put forward another preface. The situation was obviously going to be ridiculous. It is unfortunate that what is a very good report, on which I will speak in a moment, was somewhat upset. I think the preface does take away from the report as a whole. Again, I totally support Mr Lamont's right to put forward any additional comments he wants to.
MR STEVENSON (11.10): I find Mr Lamont's comments remarkable.
Mr Connolly: You are the expert on Assembly committee procedures!
MR STEVENSON: That is not what I find remarkable. He refers to Mr Moore's contention that the Labor Party has forsaken its policy on euthanasia. He goes on to say, in referring to the policy on euthanasia:
That policy does not commit the Labor Party to act in advance of public sentiment on the issue but to work towards a position where the community does accept active euthanasia.
What this statement says is that, although the Labor Party has a policy, it does not mean that they have a policy. It actually means that, provided there is public agreement on the policy, they take a step and then have a policy. I find it a remarkable statement that - - -
Mr Lamont: No; that is what the euthanasia policy says, Dennis. The euthanasia policy says, "Do not act in advance of public sentiment". Read the letter.
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