Page 903 - Week 04 - Thursday, 3 May 2007
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things were like before, but methinks it has the smell of majority government. It is very easy; I can see the majority government complacently saying, “Well, you know, we are a majority government.”
Last year the Liberal-National coalition government did something extremely similar in the Senate—actually in the whole parliament—up there on the hill. I know that Labor—as much as the Greens, the Democrats and anyone who was not in the coalition, including many concerned people in our society who care about democracy—joined the outcry about that. In that case, it was ensuring that the government has the majority and a chair on the committee. That is a sure-fire way of suppressing—
Ms Porter: Where is the majority?
Mr Barr: It is two, two and one.
Ms Porter: That is no majority.
Mrs Burke: You shut down debate when you hold the chair. You know you do.
Ms Porter: No. Add it up: two, two—
DR FOSKEY: My dear government members, I do not believe I said that. I said that these are tools that are used by governments to ensure that there is a lessening of democracy. In this case, we would have seen different fun and games if the government had not put it into an amendment, which will of course become a resolution. We would have seen a different set of games played about who took the chair. I am used to those. I am used to being blamed for doing deals with the government. In this way, they are just cutting straight to the chase. They are declaring the chair; they are reducing the ability for the committee to decide on its own chair. We will see more fun and games in the running of estimates. That has been the way it has gone in the last two years.
I happen to think that the estimates process is really important. I value my membership of the committee. I thank the government for that, and I thank the opposition for including me in the motion. If I were not in estimates, it would be very hard for me to ask the kinds of questions I do and to do the scrutiny. I believe that the Greens ask questions that are not asked by others. We are able to bring in some of the concerns of the community sector as well as of people who care about the environment—as well as concerns that I have developed in the time I have been in the Assembly. So I thank the government for that.
I note again—ironically, and not because I want the money—that once again I am being denied the chance to chair a committee in this place. It is a very interesting thing—four years, and not a single chance to chair a committee. I am sure that the government has its reasons for that and I am sure the opposition will endorse it on that. We will have the fun and games. I am looking forward to it; feeling more equipped for it; and sorry that I will not have a chance to be a democratically elected chairperson. But I am not surprised and I will not be supporting the amendment.
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