I have still fairly good powers of hearing. I am referring solely to what was said by Senator Comyn just now before I rose. He said that this was a Bill that might affect the large mass of the people and he gave that as a reason for sending it to a committee and not discussing it in this House. If I were to put that forward as a reason in connection with any of the public Bills which affect the large mass of the people, I have no doubt I would be ridiculed by Senator Comyn. It is no reason. That there may be experience in other countries and, therefore, we must not hear about it, seems to be an equally absurd reason. To my mind, the position is simply this: here we have a measure of which a number of us are strongly in favour; others say they are in favour of it, but do not like certain provisions of it. Surely, if that be the case, it should be the easiest possible type of measure to have a friendly discussion about in the House. I may be wrong, but I do not see any reason why if the statements made are true they should not be much more easily and readily discussed in the House. If, in the course of the discussion, abstruse points arise which cannot be dealt with, it is still possible at any time, by a special motion made, to send a particular point to a special committee. If you look at the Standing Orders you will find that a special section in the Bill can be sent to a special committee.
We know perfectly well that this Bill does not represent all that everybody who is in favour of humane slaughter wants. The Bill is a compromise, to a large extent, based on experience elsewhere and may, to some extent, be experimental. Deliberately, no demand is made to apply it to the farmers at present until we have some experience of the whole matter. It is an attempt at reaching a commonsense measure. I think I can speak for the other Senators whose names are on the back of the Bill and say that that is all we want and that we are prepared to listen to reasonable arguments. What I do not believe would help the least bit would be a committee in which we should have experts contradicting each other, as I know would be the case, on nearly all these points. You can get two veterinary experts, both apparently of equal standing, to contradict each other completely on the Bill.
Senator Counihan thinks that very few of us know very much about it. If knowing about it means actually taking part in the trade, I think the number must be infinitesimal, if any. If knowing about it means having studied the case on both sides, then quite a number have gone to the trouble of finding out and do know something of the case that can be made against parts of the Bill. The reason why certain things are not in the Bill is because we are convinced of the case against them, and we recognise that there is certain difficulty. That is the reason why pigs are not included. How many Bills of the greatest importance are passed here of which a large number know all about them? You would never pass a Bill at all, otherwise, you would send every Bill to a special committee. Here is a Bill on which there is no Party Whip. This is the last kind of a Bill to send to a select committee. We have had lip-service paid to it from the whole House and I believe from the vast majority of the House genuine support of the Bill. If you want to get the opposite thing, to have every single thing voted by a bare majority, then get a whole lot of experts and get the enthusiasts to give evidence. Of course there may be, in the course of the Committee discussion on this Bill, some points which we are not able to deal with without some expert evidence, but I think all the points likely to arise can be dealt with by the use of commonsense in this House, particularly if amendments are carefully prepared and if time is given for their consideration. If that is not the case, then I think I am correct in saying that portion of the Bill, or even the whole of it, can be sent to a Special Committee.