Page 5938 - Week 14 - Thursday, 8 December 2011
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which the standing orders say we do when in doubt about your procedures, there are a number of committees that cover what admin and procedure do in this place up on the big hill. There is the selection committee, there is the procedure committee, there is the library committee. Some of them say you need certain positions filled by certain people. Others are absolutely mute, and I am told—I have not had time to check—they are simply filled by the backbench, by the nominees of the party. That is how it should be here. The nominees of the party should be free to perform the duties as determined by their party, not by this place.
The Greens talk long and hard about a new way of doing things. Let us see you live up to that reputation. If you are going to start picking and choosing where you choose to do these things, as I said earlier, this simply becomes a political contrivance. It goes to the integrity of the Greens. It goes to the heart of what they are doing and, I have to say, it is to the disgrace of the Labor Party.
The Chief Minister said “new era of openness and accountability”. What is open about this? There is nothing open about forcing the Canberra Liberals in this case to put somebody other than their chosen representative on the committee. This is a disgraceful act. This is what happens when you have majority government here. The Greens-Labor alliance is a majority government—they look like a majority government, they act like a majority government on this issue. You can only assume that, therefore, they are a majority government. The hypocrisy is loud.
You cannot pick and choose when you say, “We want to move forward and try things in a different way,” and then, when it does not suit you, simply revert to 20 years of tradition and say, “Well, that’s how they’ve always done it.” You do yourselves no honour, and you do this place no honour. It is this sort of rank hypocrisy that annoys the voters and annoys the community when parties like the Greens simply pick and choose when it suits them.
MS HUNTER (Ginninderra—Parliamentary Leader, ACT Greens) (11.58): It is quite interesting to hear some of the arguments put forward by the Canberra Liberals. I still cannot quite understand what the issue is with having their whip on this committee. Mr Smyth has just spoken about how this is a terrible thing, it is an outrageous thing, because parties will not be able to choose whom they put onto this committee. Well, parties can, because parties first of all make the decision about who their whips are. If the Canberra Liberals feel that Mrs Dunne is head and shoulders above Mr Hanson in this category, they can make that decision in their party room to make Mrs Dunne the whip, and then Mrs Dunne becomes part of the admin and procedure committee. If that is what the argument is, Mr Smyth, then follow it through to its conclusion. What we have here—
Mr Smyth interjecting—
MR SPEAKER: Order, Mr Smyth! I expect Ms Hunter to be heard without interjection, thank you.
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