Page 4392 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 25 October 2017
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MR BARR: What is the motion?
Mr Wall: A motion to amend the sitting pattern to remove tomorrow, Tuesday and Wednesday of next week.
MR BARR: No. I am not giving leave for that.
MADAM SPEAKER: The only way you are going to be able to do it is to seek leave, and it has been indicated that leave will not be granted. So the question before the chair is that the Assembly do now adjourn. Mr Barr.
MR BARR: Thank you, Madam Speaker. Perhaps I can clarify a range of issues and circumvent Mr Wall seeking to suspend standing orders. There has been, as I understand it, lodged by the Leader of the Opposition a motion of no confidence in me as Chief Minister. The standing orders do not preclude the Assembly from continuing to sit in the intervening seven days before this motion of no confidence will be considered by the Assembly.
The Companion to the Standing Orders of the Legislative Assembly for the Australian Capital Territory at page 94 section 6.60 states:
The delivery and reporting of a notice of a motion of no confidence has not precluded the Assembly from considering other business, either on the day that the notice of no confidence was delivered and reported or on the days intervening before the motion was considered, though the usual practice has been for the Assembly to adjourn for the intervening period.
So over the history of this place there have been occasions where the Assembly has adjourned for a seven-day period and sitting days have been altered and there have been occasions where the Assembly has continued its normal course of business.
I have consulted with other members in this place in relation to this matter, and it is the government’s intention to continue the Assembly’s business. The Assembly will, of course, give due consideration, as it should, to this most serious of motions moved by the Leader of the Opposition. I will say at this stage, having spoken to members in the Assembly, I am confident I will retain the support of the majority of members in the Assembly. I think it is important that the very important business that has been scheduled for tomorrow and for Tuesday and Wednesday of next week continue. That is not in breach of the standing orders; it is consistent with the advice in the companion to the standing orders.
For those reasons, Madam Speaker, it is the government’s intention to continue with sittings. We will, of course, give precedence to this matter of no confidence on the seventh day when it will be the first item of business. As I understand it, that would be on the Thursday of next week’s sittings, the final scheduled sitting for this two-week block. The Assembly should, rightly, have that issue as the first item of business on that day. That is how the government will proceed from here.
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