The West Australian Labor government has been called out in some fiery exchanges in Parliament regarding their “urgent” actions in ramming through an extremely controversial bill that allows males to self-identify as women – gaining unfettered access to sport, changerooms, rape crises centres, prisons and more. Several members of the opposition and cross benches called out the government exposing their dangerous agenda and misuse of recent legislation to brand anything they see fit as ‘urgent’. Hon Dr Brian Walker pointed out that the government was rushing this bill through under the ‘urgency’ provision to avoid serious questions surrounding the bill. He said it undermines the system of governance and is akin to a totalitarian regime. We are the house of review. The idea, “We’ve decided we’re right and you’re all wrong; we’re not going to talk about it anymore”, is very reminiscent of other Parliaments in other parts of the world—countries I would not like to live in because freedom there is perhaps a scarce commodity.
Are we here approaching the time when such things are passed more frequently through our house, limiting the freedom in a democratic structure to ask serious questions about a serious bill that will affect quite a large number of people in the population? The Hon Wilson Tucker accused the government of misusing the provision of ramming through legislation under emergency COVID laws and commented that they are panicking as they possibly won’t have a majority after the next state election. He finished his comments with, “I do not think the government’s agenda should get in the way of having a wholesome and meaningful debate on this very important piece of legislation.” The Hon Nick Goiran made excellent comments regarding the bill and the Labor government’s poor handling of the situation. President, you have to wonder why we bother having a house of review at all. This motion that has been moved by the Leader of the House is unnecessary. It is authoritarian. It is unreasonable. It is inconsistent and it is improper. It is utterly unnecessary to have this motion before us. During the Committee of the Whole House, we have not had very long to scrutinise this bill.
During the little time that we have had in considering the clauses, we have found out that the government is not ready to implement this bill. How could one possibly describe that as urgent and warranting three hours for further consideration by the committee? We have been told that it will take another six months for this to be ready, but, apparently, today, the opposition and the crossbench are told that the bill needs to be dealt with by tomorrow. This approach taken by the Leader of the House is authoritarian, and it is contrary to the will of the people of Western Australia. A massive petition was tabled about this bill. I had the honour of tabling a petition in May of this year that asked for the bill to be referred for a public inquiry, and the government used its numbers to say no. The will of the people was that they would like this bill scrutinised. This is not a surprise because it is a bill that, for the first time, will allow people to be able to change their sex on their birth certificates.
Plenty of Western Australians out there are concerned about this and do not actually agree with the Cook Labor government and its arrogant approach of just ramming things through Parliament. It is unreasonable. It is utterly inadequate to provide us with a further three hours. We are on clause 1 of this 50-clause bill, and the Leader of the House dictates to us and says that she has decided that the debate will be three hours and then one hour for third reading speeches. This is unreasonable. I think that one member by themselves is normally entitled to do one hour for a third reading speech, or certainly at least 45 minutes. It is inconsistent. One must wonder why we even bother having a Parliament at all. With the WA Labor approach, we may as well have an election and after the election do not worry about having a Parliament; the executive of the day can just decide the laws, and four years later if the people are not happy, then they toss it out of government. What is the point of having a house of review when we do not send anything to parliamentary committees for consideration? There was one bill sent in more than three years.
Then when we do have a job to do in here, we say, “That’s enough. Time to ram it through.” That is what we are dealing with at the moment, and I oppose this motion. Despite their best efforts, the motion was passed and there will be only three more hours of debate and no parliamentary inquiry into the serious and devastating consequences of passing the Births, Deaths & Marriages Registration Amendment Sex or Gender Changes (Bill 2024). There are serious questions that need to be asked before passing this bill or else women will have no protection under Western Australian law to have sex-based rights, spaces, services or sport.
Source: Binary
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