Page 255 - Week 01 - Thursday, 27 February 2014
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
MR HANSON (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (10.36): It was not my intent to speak to this item today, but some pretty serious and baseless allegations have been raised by the government. I would agree that the committee system is not working well, and the question is why. We have attempted to make the committee system cooperative and effective. I spoke to the Clerk about this matter and I sought his advice. He provided me with advice on 23 May last year.
We had a debate about this very issue in the Assembly last year arising from that. In the advice that he gave me he discussed the Latimer House principles, the continuing resolution of this Assembly, which talk about the committee system. The advice that the Clerk gave me in quite some detail talked about the importance of the Latimer House principles, the continuing resolution of this Assembly, and the effect upon the committee system. The advice the Clerk gave me also referred to the historical precedent in this place when it comes to committees. Committees perform a number of roles in terms of their function of inquiry but, ultimately, the committee system is there as a scrutiny measure of government. We do not have an upper house and the committees provide a very important function of this place to make sure there is scrutiny of the executive.
The Clerk’s advice goes into the Latimer House principles, the continuing resolution. The Clerk provides apolitical advice to me. He is someone whom I certainly respect and a person who has provided long and distinguished service to this place. He says at the conclusion of his advice:
The adoption of a committee system without non-government majorities is, in my opinion, a step away from the spirit of those principles.
That is the nub of this point. What the government have done in this place is lock up the committee system. It is a deliberate act with their colleague from the Greens to make sure that the committee system is unworkable. In addition to the fact that they only want to sit in this place for 39 days a year, they have made sure that the committee system cannot function the way that the Latimer House principles and the advice of the Clerk say that they should—and that is, to make sure that there is effective scrutiny of government.
What the government and the Greens have done, as the Clerk has advised, is a step away from the Latimer House principles. What we have seen in the conduct of those opposite on committees is essentially that they want to have committee reports that are a simple praise of the government and the way it is doing its business. When the opposition wants to raise matters of concern and suggests elements and reports which deviate away from government policy, those opposite will shut that down. Probably the clearest example of this would be the estimates report of last year, where there was no opposition majority. The two members of the government on that committee then had a report that had 500 recommendations in praise of the government, and most of those recommendations were “commend the government for this”, “commend the government for that”.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video