This week in State Parliament – 1 September 2016
In State Parliament this week, Liberal and Nationals MPs opposed legislation that seeks to sack the independent Freedom of Information Commissioner and Privacy and Data Protection Commissioner.
We continued to highlight the illegal and undemocratic refusal by the government to hold a joint sitting of both houses of Parliament to appoint a Nationals MP to fill a vacancy in the Legislative Council, a decision that sets an appalling precedent for parties to use their numbers to block the filling of future vacancies in the Legislative Council or the Australian Senate.
We questioned the Premier over his double standards in claiming to stand against bullying but yet ignoring warnings from one of his own senior advisers that he needed to take action against bullying and abuse towards public servants, Ministers and Ministerial staff by firefighters’ union boss, Peter Marshall.
We won support from cross-bench members for the Legislative Council to pass the Coalition’s Bill for tougher penalties for carjacking. Appallingly, the government then defeated the Bill without debate when it reached the Legislative Assembly.
We threw out proposed regulations that would have continued to make it easier for candidates in council elections to use large numbers of “dummy” candidates to direct preference votes to them. In future, candidates won’t be able to include their “how to vote” cards in the postal voting packs sent out to voters.
We demanded answers on why the Police Minister had intervened with the Chief Commissioner over cuts to opening hours at the Waurn Ponds police station near her electorate, yet continues to refuse to intervene over reduced hours or closures at numerous other police stations across the state.
We also called on the government to make public the full cost of the government’s failed attempt to stop the Ombudsman investigating Labor’s “red shirt” rorts affair, a cost the government is charging to the taxpayer rather than the Labor Party.