Parliamentary Procedure

STANDING ORDERS SUSPENSION

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON (Croydon—Attorney-General, Minister for Justice, Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (15:49): I move:

That standing orders be so far suspended to enable a message to be sent to the Legislative Council requesting a conference be granted to this house respecting certain amendments from the Legislative Council in the Legal Profession Bill.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have counted the house and, as an absolute majority is not present, ring the bells.

An absolute majority of the whole number of members being present:

Mrs REDMOND (Heysen) (15:51): We will, of course, support this motion to suspend standing orders. I want to put on the record how it has come about, because this bill is having a somewhat tortuous progress through the two houses. It was dealt with in this house and we on this side moved certain amendments unsuccessfully, and then the bill went to the other place where those amendments were moved successfully. Then the bill came back down here and the Attorney, in his rush to disagree with our amendments, disagreed with all the amendments, including the five that had been proposed by his own minister in the other place. So the message went back to the other place to indicate that we disagreed with its amendments, and at that point the Attorney's colleagues in the upper house were again outnumbered and the amendments were insisted upon by the other place.

So when they came back here yesterday, the intention was that not only would the lower house be expected to disagree with the Legislative Council's insistence upon its amendments, but also there should have been a message back to the other place to set up a deadlock conference. Again, the Attorney is in something of a rush to play with this some more and, hopefully, we will get to the deadlock conference with reasonable haste, because it is an important matter. The opposition clearly believes that the amendments should be acceded to, but I will not speak to that now. I just indicate that we support the suspension of standing orders to enable the correction of the Attorney's oversight yesterday.

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON (Croydon—Attorney-General, Minister for Justice, Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (15:53): There was no oversight. I have at all times acted on advice.

Motion carried.