Page 1187 - Week 04 - Thursday, 4 May 2006
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budget is obviously of such immense importance to the people of the ACT and will be such a bad budget that they are afraid to face the scrutiny of an independent committee. This amendment nobbles the independence of the committee. It is being nobbled. If you took this proposal to racing stewards, they would undertake doping tests.
This committee will not be able to work. It will be divided down the middle, three-all. If that is Mr Corbell’s intent, he should just stand up and say so. There is no logic in having an equal number of members on a committee. All it will do is lead inevitably to three-all decisions in the main If, at the end, a report is ultimately produced, I suspect that at least two, probably three, of the members will not agree with the content of that report. That will mean that the report will not be available for tabling and we will have wasted all that time and all that effort. There will not be proper scrutiny.
What are you afraid of that you need to control it in such a way? What will you not answer when you appear before the estimates committee that you have to take so much control? The whole tradition of the committee system in this place has been to work together and try to produce reports that the majority can agree to. What are you afraid of with this report?
Mr Corbell: Proportional representation on committees, standing order 221.
MR SPEAKER: Order, Mr Corbell!
Mr Corbell: Mr Smyth should address his comments through the chair, Mr Speaker.
MR SMYTH: Mr Speaker, you cannot answer for them because I am sure that you do not know what they are afraid of. You are always open and honest when you appear before the committee, Mr Speaker. The problem here is that what we are seeing now is the true consequence of the arrogance of Jon Stanhope and his government. There you were in the paper on election day saying that there was nothing to fear from self-government—
Mr Corbell: We have had self-government since 1990.
MR SMYTH: Sorry, the election last year, and here you are slowly, inexorably shutting down accountability in all its shapes and forms. You are guaranteeing that this Assembly will be ridiculed over the processes that you are setting up and that any report delivered by this body also will be ridiculed, but it may not be able to achieve anything as there is always the possibility that there will be just a series of three-all draws and any three-all votes would be negated by the rules of this place.
Mr Barr: It could be four-two or it could be five-one, depending on how the factions split, could it not?
MR SMYTH: It could be four-two and it could be five-one, but why do you need to go that way, Mr Barr? What are you afraid of, Mr Barr? As to your flimsy defence of the need for this process, who is available to go onto this committee? Eleven members are available: three Labor, seven Liberal and one from the Greens. If you were honest and fair dinkum, that would be the ratio that you would apply, but no. The statement about not being afraid of your having a majority because you are going to be fair and you are
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