Page 944 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 19 April 1994
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MR KAINE (4.31): Madam Speaker, I wish to speak in support of the amendment moved by Mr Moore. Madam Speaker, I think that, still being a fledgling legislature, we need to be careful how we behave. We have some standing orders that prescribe some things, and there are other things that are not so prescribed. In the short four years that we have been in existence we have begun to develop some procedures, some conventions. One of those conventions up until now has been that the Assembly elects people to committees, and the committees determine their own chairmanship. It is becoming, I submit, a convention. There was one aberration, and I am not certain how that happened. I remember thinking at the time that the notion of the Chief Minister putting forward nominations for the establishment of an Estimates Committee, and the Chief Minister nominating the person that she wanted to chair that committee that was set up to examine her budget, was a little strange. I do not know the justification, or why that was done. It has never been explained to me as a member of this Assembly.
For some reason Mr Berry wants to set aside the convention that has been in place for four years. He has not given us any explanation as to why he wants to do that. Is it that Mr Berry is concerned that he may not be elected chairman by the committee? Is he so lacking in self-confidence that he does not believe that he has the confidence of the other members of this committee? Does he not believe that they would be prepared to stick by convention and allow him to occupy the chair and continue the work that Mr Lamont has done? Nobody has said anything to me, since Mr Lamont stepped down as chairman of the committee, that would suggest that anybody else on the committee has designs on the job. To be quite honest with you, Madam Speaker, everybody that I have spoken to has generally been in agreement with the proposition that Mr Berry should take the chair. Why then is he seeking to embed, in a motion to be adopted by this Assembly - - -
Mrs Grassby: Why are we wasting time?
Mr Humphries: You are missing the point.
MR KAINE: This is the point. Listen to me, Mrs Grassby. We do not need this motion. I submit to you that it would set aside the convention that we have established and create a precedent. Every time there is an occasion when the chairmanship of a committee needs to change the Assembly will assume the prerogative, over and above the prerogative of our committees, to determine who the chairman is going to be.
There is one other aberration in our committee structure that is not the case anywhere else in any parliament that I know of, and that is the unusual convention that the chairmanship of the Public Accounts Committee is occupied by a member of the Opposition. If we establish this precedent, is the Government tomorrow going to move a motion that I stand down as chairman of the Public Accounts Committee and that the Assembly appoint somebody else? I do not think that that is a very good precedent to set.
Mr Berry: You will have to teach us how to make eight grow into nine.
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