Page 3864 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 25 September 2019
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us get on with the business of the Assembly unless, of course, Mr Coe is trying this on because he does not want to talk about climate change.
MR BARR (Kurrajong—Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Social Inclusion and Equality, Minister for Tertiary Education, Minister for Tourism and Special Events and Minister for Trade, Industry and Investment) (3.08): Clearly, the application of standing order 136 empowers the Speaker to disallow a motion or amendment that is the same in substance to a question that has been previously resolved in the positive or the negative in a calendar year. In making the ruling, from what I am advised, you also received advice from the Clerk, as is appropriate. You then carefully considered the matter.
You outlined the previous motions in May and the two in August. The Assembly deserves and expects a careful consideration of these matters and also expects this place to operate effectively without repetition and re-litigation of resolved matters. This obviously requires a degree of discretion. It is, of course, within the purview of the opposition to dissent from your ruling.
I will, of course, go to the practicalities of the rest of this afternoon, noting that the member who has moved the motion is absent and will not be able to debate it today. We will also not have time in the schedule, given that we are only at the beginning of the day’s list. My pragmatic suggestion to those opposite is that Miss C Burch take the opportunity between now and the next sitting to redraft her motion in a way that would not fall foul of standing order 136 and bring back something in next sittings.
We are not going to be debating the motion today regardless. We will run out of time as we have other items ahead of it and Miss C Burch is not even here for reasons of illness. We have just granted her leave of absence. A sensible way forward this afternoon would be for Miss C Burch to take the opportunity to reconstruct her motion for debate in the October sittings.
MR WALL (Brindabella) (3.10): On the motion to dissent from your ruling on Miss C Burch’s motion, whilst we note the Chief Minister’s observation that we are not going to get to Assembly business notice No 5 today, this ruling sets a very dangerous precedent for the Assembly.
The transcript of the ruling you made just prior to lunch states that under standing order 136 you are able to disallow a motion or amendment which is the same in substance as any question which has been, in that calendar year, resolved in the affirmative or negative. That is correct. You also said that, in exercising your discretion under this standing order, the Speaker needs to have regard to the intent of the standing order, namely to prevent obstruction or unnecessary repetition which would consume the valuable time of the Assembly. That is standing order 64, which relates to a number of actions in standing order 63 and does not relate to standing order 136.
On the matter of 136, it is right, as you said in your advice and as the Chief Minister has just noted—the manager of government business would do well to pay attention here—that the motion or question is the same in substance as any question which has
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