HON GIZ WATSON (North Metropolitan) [ 4.23 pm ]: The Greens support the urgency motion. I have a limited amount of time, but it has been said that, whichever party has been in government, the Greens have tried to be cooperative in dealing with issues of the order of business, which bills are dealt with and how the business is organised. That has occurred since I have been in this place. We have made what we believe are some other helpful suggestions about a cooperative approach to deciding which bills are not contentious. That is probably something that can still be addressed, because it goes to the same question of how we can ensure that bills are passed in an efficient way, while at the same time giving them the necessary scrutiny. At the end of the year, there is always a kind of rush of 10 bills on the last day, all of which probably could have been dealt with in a more timely fashion over several months. The Greens have attempted to raise this issue with the Leader of the House. I am not suggesting the Leader of the House is not interested in discussing these things. I believe it would help to have business management meetings more frequently, even if it was only once every six weeks. The Greens (WA) would be happy to identify the bills we believe we could deal with expediently. I sense that the Liberal opposition would also be in favour of that. I reiterate the point that has been made about the priority list of bills that has been provided. On Friday, when we received the second group of priority bills, indicating which bills —
Hon Norman Moore: At five o’clock in the afternoon.
Hon GIZ WATSON: That is right—on Friday at five o’clock in the afternoon. The list indicated nine bills that the government wished to prioritise during the first two sitting weeks. It is absolutely the government’s prerogative to do that, but I was then left with five bills that I did not know about until last Friday afternoon, and which I now have to deal with during the first two-week session.
Hon Norman Moore: They weren’t on the previous priorities.
Hon GIZ WATSON: They were not on the previous list; that is why I did not know about them. It would have been helpful to have known about them a bit earlier. As a small party, it is virtually inhuman to expect the Greens (WA) to adequately look at five bills over the weekend and, possibly, Monday. That is an issue.
It is really unfortunate for this issue to become politicised because I think it tends to break down the goodwill that usually operates in the house, although I understand that we are in politics and that these things happen. However, I was deeply offended by the criticism from both the Premier and Hon Jim McGinty on this issue, because when the upper house is falsely accused of delaying important legislation, it reflects upon the Greens (WA), the Liberal Party and the government. I do not think the criticisms were accurate. The reality was that the Criminal Law and Evidence Amendment Bill 2006 could have been dealt with quite expediently last year because the Standing Committee on Legislation had done its work. I might correct the Deputy Leader of the Opposition’s suggestion that the committee sought an extension three times; it happened only once. According to the executive summary of the committee’s report on the bill, only one extension of a couple of months was sought. I do not think it was actually unreasonable to take a bit of time over a complicated bill that dealt with criminal matters.
The Greens (WA) offer assistance and cooperation in any further discussions outside the chamber about how to improve the efficiency of the passage of bills. We are quite happy to move to sessional orders. It would suit the Greens (WA), as it would provide non-government time to debate private member’s bills. We are therefore enthusiastic about a return to sessional orders, which would also have the advantage of giving the government more time for government legislation.
The Greens (WA) have regularly raised the issue of speaking times. I know it is a debatable point, but we still argue that 45 minutes of speaking time is more than necessary for any given bill. The Greens (WA) have always discouraged speakers being given unlimited speaking time. I do not suggest that that particular provision has been misused in recent years; that is not the issue.
The final point I wish to contribute to the issue of the workload and output of the Legislative Council concerns the research capacity provided by the Parliamentary Library. I sent to the Leader of the House—I also sent copies to the Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the National Party—a proposition for the library to be funded to provide research notes for all members, as happens in the Parliaments of New South Wales, Victoria , Queensland , Tasmania and South Australia , and the federal Parliament. With regard to members being prepared for debates in a timely fashion and being given assisted capacity for research, I think that will also be a great additional asset for the Legislative Council. I know that has been raised before, but I put that also on the record. If we combine those recommendations, we will find that we will be able to deal expediently with those matters that can be dealt with expediently and spend the appropriate amount of time on bills that need some time to consider. Some bills are about very serious matters and can be complicated. I do not think the “run rate” or the number of bills we churn out is necessarily the way to judge how we serve the best interests of democracy and the state anyway. Actual figures do not give us much; it is a matter of how serious a bill is. We can deal with a bill in five minutes or spend, say, two weeks on it. We, as members of Parliament, are in the best position to judge how much time should be spent on legislation.