It is proposed to take items Nos. 1 and 2, with a lunch adjournment from 1 p.m. until 2 p.m. and to take item No. 2 at 2 o'clock
Order of Business.
We on this side of the House join with Senator Higgins in asking that this matter of the hanging of the poet in South Africa be raised.
I do not know how the Senator thinks he is in order when the other Senator has been ruled out of order.
When one looked at television last night and saw a truck going through a black township in South Africa and women and children being killed indiscriminately one realised that it was about time we said, "stop".
I will discuss the matter with Senator Higgins when I leave the Chair.
It is far past the time when we should review the regulations governing these procedures in this House to allow Members to raise matters of national or international importance, as is possible in the other House.
There are provisions in Standing Orders to deal with this.
It is clear they are not adequate.
It is not clear; we will have to discuss it.
In a moment I am going to say something that is in order but first I should like to support Senator Higgins in what he says. The procedures should be revised whereby a matter of such importance may be discussed in the House. It is a matter of great emergency.
Secondly, I do not understand why we are taking item No. 2 today at 2 o'clock because I have just read the report of what Senator Dooge said at the end of our last meeting and that was that we would sit all day today and next week, all legislation having been passed, to discuss the Report of the Joint Committee on Marital Breakdown. On that understanding the Independents did not oppose the fact that the Seanad, for some strange reason, was not to sit last week. It was particularly on that understanding, and with that promise from the Leader of the House, that we did not oppose the absence of any meeting last week.
I do not understand why the report of the Ombudsman has been put in now because Senator Dooge gave a promise. Are the Government again trying to give us only two and a half hours today to discuss marital breakdown or are we coming back to this after the annual report of the Ombudsman? I should like the Acting Leader of the House to give us an assurance — an assurance we have already — that next Thursday, when we are meant to meet again, we will not again have only two and a half hours or less to discuss marital breakdown. Will that assurance of Senator Dooge — I am sorry to be speaking about him in his absence — be carried through to next Thursday also? Does that assurance still hold or are we going to have another report slipped in next week?
I am only concerned with the Order of Business for today, as has been agreed by the parties. I have done everything to meet the wishes of the other parties.
What about Senator Dooge's promise two weeks ago?
We are just concerned with today.
It does not carry, in other words?
I will not delay the House but I want to clarify a matter in my own mind. On reading Standing Orders I well understand that it is in the interests of the orderly business of the Seanad that people should give notice when they intend to raise matters but I am sure the Chair will appreciate that at any time the President of the South African Republic could have acceded to requests by the international community to defer the hanging in question.
I suggest the Senator read Standing Order No. 29.
Will I have an opportunity to raise this matter before the Seanad finishes today?
The Senator should read the Standing Order and I will discuss the matter with him.
Order of Business agreed to.