Hughes Darren: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Hughes Darren: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:660;Page:9253] 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 There is a kernel of truth in one of the points made by the Minister. Of course it is technically possible for this Parliament to be flooded every single day it meets with unlimited numbers of amendments by Opposition parties. That is true every single time it meets. It is within the purview of Opposition members to take points of order if they wish all during question time. Indeed the Minister himself made quite a feature of that during 9 years in Opposition. It was quite an art that he had perfected. All those things are possible but the reality is that they do not happen because Parliament operates on a series of understandings and conventions and a will to get things done 99 percent of the time. [ 
Interruption 
] If the Minister wants to use his open microphone to interject he can but the point I make to you Mr Chairperson is that these things do not happen because Parliament’s business must go through and the Opposition cooperates with that. 
But what has become very clear is that the Government is trying to roll over the top of the Opposition this week shutting down parliamentary question time for example so that there is no question time between now and 17 March. We have had amendments that were ruled out by way of financial veto. The Minister who himself talked about the ability to have robust debate in this Parliament did not take a call at any stage today in order to defend his own legislation so we could accuse him of a breach of parliamentary protocol. 
What I am saying is that it is very unusual for the Opposition to lodge this number of amendments but the fact that it has happened and the fact that there are so many and that of course it involves a lot of work for a lot of people does not undermine the fact that these are amendments that are in order and it is within the ability of Parliament for the Opposition to do this. You are being asked to take into account a far wider gamut of things than would normally be the case. For example many times during a normal day where the Government orders of the day take precedence the Opposition puts up amendments. It could be argued that some of them have some level of fiscal impact but we do not see the Government running around like it did at 2 o’clock today with the Leader of the House coming in and ruling out all of those amendments. In that case there were only three amendments—all three very substantial amendments; in particular the amendment of my colleague Mr Anderton who put up a new part around for example suicide. 
They were very sensitive and serious matters and I think that what has been done here is for the fact that there is a feeling there is some time pressure and the Government is unhappy about the fact that things are going slower than it would have liked to see—and let me assure the Committee that it is the master of its own destiny in that particular respect; the Opposition had a reasonable deal to cooperate on all these matters. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: We would have finished this by now. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: One of the ironies is that this bill would be law by now if the approach that Dr Smith and Mr Brownlee had taken had not been the case. It would have passed its third reading so there is a degree of irony in that. 
But all of that is just by the by. What is important is that amendments that are in order that are submitted to the Clerk’s Office should be able to be voted on on their own merits and not be held up in wider political concerns that are not your responsibility as Chairman. Your responsibility as Chairman is to the Committee and to make sure that the rights of the minority can be advanced here. I think the fact that this is something that happens rarely should be a message in itself to the Government but to the Committee it is simply a case of our amendments being able to be considered by the Committee of the whole House and I do not think that other matter should be taken into account.