Page 2888 - Week 09 - Thursday, 13 August 2015
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those forward, because we would like to debate the merits of the disallowable motions today in order to provide some clarity and some certainty for the proponents around those two draft variations.
Since then, I have been advised that Mr Coe has withdrawn those two motions. My instinct says that once the situation occurs where there are some pairs in place, they will be re-lodged and that will occur again. So it is important to allow the standing orders to be set aside so we can move the motions and have that debate. Mr Coe thinks it is an important debate—he has lodged motions on it—so it is important we have the debate and go through that process.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (4.07): It is sad that we get to this state with a very sneaky government. We on this side of the house are committed to a healthy democracy. We believe that requires frank, transparent and accountable practices in all aspects of government. One of those transparent practices is to give people who have an interest in matters that arise in this house time to prepare. The House of Representatives Practice, which we defer to, says:
A notice is a declaration of intent—
it is a declaration of intent—
to the House by a Member to either move a motion or present a bill on a specified day. A notice must contain the terms of the motion or the long title of the bill. The standing orders are applied …
It then goes on to say, under “Motions requiring notice”:
It can generally be said that substantive motions require notice, whereas subsidiary motions do not.
And what is happening here is not a subsidiary motion. It continues:
However, whether a motion requires notice or not depends to a large extent upon practical …
And our practice is that motions of this kind have notice. It goes on to say:
It is normal meeting procedure for notice to be given of motions proposed to be moved. This action alerts interested persons and avoids the possibility of business being conducted without the knowledge or due consideration of interested parties. The standing orders provide that a Member must not move a motion unless he or she has given a notice of motion and the notice has appeared on the Notice Paper …
Madam Deputy Speaker, from any perusal of the notice paper you will not find what Mr Corbell purports to be moving disallowance on. It is just not there. So you have a sneaky government that does not know its standing orders and does not know the form of the house. Again I will quote what I think we all espouse to:
… a healthy democracy requires frank, transparent and accountable practices in all aspects of government.
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