Page 4820 - Week 15 - Thursday, 8 December 1994
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PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION (HARE-CLARK)
ENTRENCHMENT BILL 1994
Suspension of Standing and Temporary Orders
MR HUMPHRIES (3.46): Madam Speaker, I ask for leave to move a motion to suspend standing orders. The motion is the same, in substance, as the one that was moved earlier today.
MADAM SPEAKER: That is a worry, is it not? I have the power to disallow that, have I not?
Mr Moore: He is seeking leave, Madam Speaker. Any of us have that power.
Leave granted.
MR HUMPHRIES: I move:
That so much of the standing and temporary orders be suspended as would prevent order of the day No. 1, private members business, relating to the Proportional Representation (Hare-Clark) Entrenchment Bill 1994, being called on forthwith.
Question resolved in the affirmative, with the concurrence of an absolute majority:
Agreement-in-Principle Stage
Debate resumed from 30 November 1994, on motion by Mr Humphries:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (3.47): Madam Speaker, the Government has a number of difficulties with this Bill of Mr Humphries's, although we do not oppose the concept of entrenchment in principle. The first problem with the Bill is the obvious haste with which it has been drafted and the very short period of time that has been allowed for consideration of it. Given the complex nature of the Bill and the fact that it seeks to entrench key parts of our electoral system - or that is what Mr Humphries has tried to tell us that it does - it would have been appropriate, in my view, to have consulted widely on the Bill and to have given adequate time to consider all of its legal and practical implications. To claim, as Mr Humphries has done, that the Bill could not be drafted until passage of the Referendum (Machinery Provisions) Act is simply not a sufficient excuse. As I have said previously on this matter, the Referendum (Machinery Provisions) Bill was tabled in September of this year, and at that stage Mr Humphries could have distributed an exposure draft of his Bill for comment; but he did not do so. In fact, Madam Speaker, I believe that that would have been the preferable course for Mr Humphries to follow, had he been really genuine in his desire to entrench some of these provisions.
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