Legislation glut in the upper house

The Legislative Council had seven bills on its notice paper on Monday when it was convened for a special sitting in order to debate the government’s gaming legislation.

The House of Assembly will resume sitting on Tuesday and the government intends to pass more legislation to send to the upper house.

Murchison independent MLC Ruth Forrest said the Legislative Council worked at its best when there were a regular stream of bills to the upper house “We have not seen such an indecent rush of legislation heading toward the last sitting week for many years,” she said.

“We lost several sitting weeks with the early election that were not replaced and here we are in the last two sitting weeks with several pieces of controversial and contested legislation that require significant scrutiny.”

Ms Forrest said she believed the government could manage the flow of legislation better.

“In my view, they will need to prioritise the bills they want dealt with this week as there are only so many hours in the day and fatigue can lead to poor decision-making,” she said.

Mersey independent MLC Mike Gaffney said an upper house sitting week was postponed some months ago as there was not enough legislation to warrant a sitting.

“In contrast, there are now so many pieces of significant legislation on the table that an extra sitting day was scheduled for [Monday], as well as earlier start times and late finishes,” he said.

“The Legislative Council should not feel pressure to pass legislation based on a sitting schedule.”

Nelson independent MLC Meg Webb said cramming a glut of legislation through Parliament in the final weeks of the year disrespected good parliamentary process.

“This is not the way to deliver good, accountable legislation, let alone effective, well-supported reforms,” she said.