Page 911 - Week 04 - Thursday, 3 May 2007
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MR STANHOPE: As I was saying, the opposition should be embarrassed. We all understand the nature of this place, the nature of political debate and the nature of political positioning. But you have not got a case. You are out there trying to confect a case. Heaven forbid! We, as a government with a majority—with the capacity to influence the membership, structure and nature of every committee in this place—choose to adopt a minority position, with just one extra proviso. Whilst we agree to a minority position and we expose ourselves to the possibility of losing every single vote that the committee might take, we have quite legitimately and rightly suggested that our concession to adopt a minority position on that committee will be accompanied by a desire to chair the committee. We accept that potentially we will lose every vote, but in making a concession to agree to a minority position on a very important and significant committee it is reasonable and appropriate for the government, the party in whom the people of Canberra have vested their trust, to chair that committee, albeit as a minority on the committee.
For an opposition in this place to stand up and expect anybody to take this matter seriously is puerile. The opposition has a minority, an absence of a capacity to influence ultimately any decision that the committee might take. It is puerile in the extreme for the opposition to suggest that the government is somehow abusing its authority, the authority that was vested in it by the people of the ACT. It is simply absurd for each of you to stand up in this place successively—serially—and expect anybody to take you seriously in the context of a debate where we, the government, have agreed to be a minority. It just paints you as absurd.
We have willingly exposed ourselves to the possibility that we will lose every vote that this committee might take. No other government in Australia has done it. The federal government under John Howard has not done it.
Mrs Burke: So now you are some sort of hero.
MR STANHOPE: It is incredibly generous. We had a significant debate in the caucus about it this morning. Some of us thought that it was overly generous, that there was absolutely no need to do it. John Howard does not do it in the federal parliament. John Howard does not allow a single committee within his jurisdiction, within his Senate, to be chaired by the opposition—let alone, heaven forbid, for the opposition to hold a majority on the committee. We have done it. We have agreed.
We have been generous. We had the debate. As you would expect, there was another view: “Why don’t we simply have a three-two committee? That is what John Howard would have done. That is what every other parliament in Australia does. Why don’t we do what every other parliament does?” We decided today that we would not—that we would reflect the nature of this particular Assembly through this committee and accept that we have a crossbench with a right to play an active role in the proceedings of the Assembly, of the parliament. We accepted that. We accept that we will be in a minority. That is a very rare thing today—in fact, a unique thing in an Australian parliament today. We are the only government in Australia today to willingly accept a minority position on an estimates committee.
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