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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-09-11 Daily Xml
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PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEES (MEMBERSHIP OF THE ENVIRONMENT, RESOURCES AND DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE) AMENDMENT BILL

Introduction and First Reading

The Hon. M. PARNELL (16:01): Obtained leave and introduced a bill for an act to amend the Parliamentary Committees Act 1991. Read a first time.

Second Reading

The Hon. M. PARNELL (16:02): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

As I alluded to in my comments on the previous bill, this bill seeks to add truth to the concept of parliamentary scrutiny by making sure that the parliament genuinely does have the ability to scrutinise a planning scheme. Again, this legislation was born out of the deliberations of the Community Alliance. A large number of community groups recognised at a very early stage that they were wasting their time coming to parliament looking for relief and looking for the parliament to exercise scrutiny over the executive because, by the time the parliament got to look at it, the horse had well and truly bolted and the planning changes were already in the Government Gazette.

I note the Hon. David Ridgway's interest in this matter. In the past he has been very critical of instances where the Greens have sought to refer something to the Environment, Resources and Development Committee because—and I agree with him entirely—it is a government-controlled committee and therefore, whilst I think the scrutiny of that committee inquiring into things is worthwhile, the outcome in terms of votes on the committee is a foregone conclusion, as members would know.

The reason it is a foregone conclusion is that the Parliamentary Committees Act provides that the six members of that committee are to come half from the House of Assembly and half from the Legislative Council. The act also provides that the House of Assembly is to provide the chair and that the chair has a casting vote. So, a very common scenario in the Environment, Resources and Development Committee is a 3-3 tied vote on the floor of that committee, and the chair invariably exercises his or her casting vote in favour of the executive. That is how it has been since 1994.

I am only aware of one instance of a different outcome and, in the end, that was resolved by negotiation. I am now going back into the archives, long before my time. It was a bit of a wake-up call to certain people. Certainly, on the record, the parliament has never rejected a change to a planning scheme on the basis of a referral from the Environment, Resources and Development Committee because the ERD Committee is controlled by the executive and that is because it is a committee administered by the House of Assembly.

The solution is dead simple. In fact, it is the same solution I put forward as an amendment to a government bill that is sitting on the Notice Paper—in fact, languishing on the Notice Paper—because the government has no intention of advancing it. I thought if they are not going to advance their bill, I will take that amendment and introduce it as a standalone measure.

All the bill really does is replace the words 'House of Assembly' wherever occurring and substitute 'Legislative Council'. What that would mean is that given that the executive, the government of the day, has not controlled this chamber since the 1970s, there is every chance that the three members of this chamber are likely to reflect a diversity of opinions and parties. It is also likely that the person they choose as their Chair would not be a member of the government of the day. That is not guaranteed, and of course the make-up of the Legislative Council might dictate that it works otherwise, but the only chance of the government not controlling the committee is to take the committee away from the House of Assembly and preventing that house from providing the chair.

It is a definitional matter. The government is the party with control of the House of Assembly. If the House of Assembly controls this committee, the government controls this committee. I think that if parliamentary scrutiny is to mean anything, it needs to be a lot more democratic than we have at present. It is a very simple change.

As I have said, the Liberal Party has been very critical of the fact of it being a government dominated committee, and I am sure their principal position of the past will not change as we get closer to the election. I am sure it will stay a principal position and I would be very keen for all parties to recognise that this is a change that is long overdue. I commend the bill to the house.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. G.A. Kandelaars.

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