Page 2249 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 16 August 2006
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MR SPEAKER: Order! Members of the government will cease interjecting. Dr Foskey, direct your comments through the chair.
DR FOSKEY: I would like to see a level of civility maintained. For that reason, I support the motion because that was an arrangement that we had.
MR PRATT (Brindabella) (3.36): Mr Speaker, one of the bases of the government’s position in relation to their approach to this motion is, of course, the alleged denial of a pair to Ms MacDonald on the estimates committee. The estimates committee is one of the most important committee exercises of the entire annual cycle in this place. The government’s outrage about the alleged denial of a pair drips with hypocrisy. In this case a member of that committee took off three days before that committee could properly conclude its deliberations—
MR SPEAKER: Come to the subject matter.
MR PRATT: The committee was misled about what the member’s intentions were. The committee was placed in such a position that it was quite right for that committee to deny the pair. For this government to express outrage based on a so-called unfair denial of a pair is just completely wrong. There is no basis for your concern at all. If that is the reason for the stunt we have seen here today, you are way off the mark. You have no right to contrive outrage.
MR STANHOPE (Ginninderra—Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Business and Economic Development, Minister for Indigenous Affairs and Minister for the Arts) (3.37): Mr Speaker, there was absolutely no justification or basis for refusing Ms MacDonald a pair for Monday.
Mrs Dunne: There was no justification or basis to ask for one.
MR STANHOPE: Mrs Burke, who was paired with Ms MacDonald—
Mrs Dunne: For these sittings this week, not last Friday.
MR STANHOPE: was already in New Zealand herself.
Mr Smyth: I raise a point of order as to relevance, Mr Speaker.
Mrs Dunne: No, she was not.
MR SPEAKER: Order, Mrs Dunne!
Mrs Dunne: She was here. She went on Sunday.
Mr Pratt: She went on Sunday.
MR STANHOPE: I am talking about on Monday.
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