Latest / 360 with Katie Woolf / Retired politician Gerry Wood provides insight on how a vote of no confidence against the NT Government could play out

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Retired politician Gerry Wood provides insight on how a vote of no confidence against the NT Government could play out · 360 with Katie Woolf

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: We do know that the COLP is planning to well
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: get the ball rolling when it comes to moving a
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: motion of no confidence against the government when Parliament sits today.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Now my understanding is that it's not going to be debated,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: of course this week. They have to bring the motion forward.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: It then wouldn't even happen until March. Now joining me
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  Speaker 1: in the studio to give us a bit of background,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: I think and explain how it works is former politician
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: many of you will know, Jerry would Good morning to you, Jerry.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Good morning Katie.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Now Jerry. In terms of this vote of no confidence?
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Have we had many of them in the Northern Territory before?
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: I think only two people with a memory going further
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: back may may know of another one. But no, there
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: was the one in my time with Paul Henderson, and
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: there was one that Michael going to put through against
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: the Giles government, and I think two thousand and nineteen
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: or eighteen somewhere there, Yeah, nineteen, I think it might
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: have been.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: It might have been earlier than that that day, I
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: might have but out there now.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: The one that happened while Paul Henderson was in power
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  Speaker 1: was a really interesting one because you were actually required
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: then to sort of, you know, to determine the balance
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: of power, weren't you.
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: Yes, it was probably one of the hardest times in
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: my life in politics. I were criticized from some quarters
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: and probably praised from a few other quarters. But it
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: was a very difficult time, and without going through all
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: the reasoning.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: One of the reasons, which.
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: Is a problem that the CLP might just say, for arguments,
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: say they won the vote of no confidence, is that
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: in my case, I would have had the form a
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: government not only with the CLP at that time, but
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: with also Alison Anderson, which would have mean that I
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: would have had to come to some sort of agreement
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  Speaker 3: with her about various issues.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: And I actually didn't think that we were going to meet.
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: And agree on many things at that time, and I
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: thought that would more that would be an unstable government
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: as well. But that's only part of the reason. That's
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: people don't say that's the main reason. There are plenty
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: of other reasons. But the COLP, if it say, for arguments,
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: they did win that vote, then you would have to
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: have a minority government because hasn't got a majority of
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: its own party in parliament, so we'd have to add
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: the three independence and get someone else to join, and
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: they would have to agree to form some form of coalition.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: And this is sort of the very interesting thing that
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: you know, last week obviously, when the opposition leader said
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: that she was going to be doing this, you go, well,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: there are a lot of people that are incredibly frustrated
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: with the Northern Territory government's response to crime. But a
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: vote of no confidence then is, you know, is a
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: whole extra step. And I know that we've had plenty
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: of people saying, hey, I support this, so I think
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: it needs to happen. But talk me through what the
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: process actually has to be when it's you know, in parliament, Jarah.
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: Well, I think, as I think Leah said the other day,
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: you've got to wait so many days before you can
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: introduce it.
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  Speaker 2: Then there's a debate on it, and then well a
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: vote on.
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: The problem is that the numbers aren't there, and so
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: it ends up like I suppose any other debate you
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: can have in parliament, because there are other ways of
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: doing things and looking vote of no confidence as a
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  Speaker 3: serious vote. And obviously by saying you're going to have
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: a vote of no confidence, you're saying to the government,
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  Speaker 3: we think you're in big trouble and you're not doing
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: your job.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: But there are a couple other ways.
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  Speaker 3: For instance, during question time, and what governments used to
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: what oppositions used to do, is you'd see them line
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  Speaker 3: up a whole series of questions which would have a
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: particular flavor, and towards the end of question time, and
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: sometimes in the middle of the question time they stop
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: for everything and say we're going to censer the government.
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  Speaker 3: I used to get annoyed that because I couldn't ask
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: any more questions of my own because they were running
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: their own agenda. But what normally happened was government would
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: accept that sense of motion and then you would have
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: a debate on the sensu motion. Now the government still
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: had some control because they could get up an amend
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: the sense of motion to turn it on upside down,
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: and you'd be arguing that things were terrific, when the
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: oppositions saying things weren't. But that's one area that the
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: opposition can get up and debate serious issues.
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  Speaker 1: And that's something that the files government really haven't allowed
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: to happen on the place.
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: And that's what partly worries me that the whole process
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: in government nowadays is very tightly controlled by the government.
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: So you know, the saddest thing for me in the
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: way things are the government got rid of scrutiny committees,
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: and scrutiny committee were really important in a unicameral parliament.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: We copied what happened in Queensland. In fact, Natasha Files
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: is a great supporter of the Scrutiny Committee. When you
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: read the speech when they came in and they scrapped them,
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: and they were way of including the community in the
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: decision making process and opening up Parliament to the people,
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  Speaker 3: which is what Labour's policy was opening out Parliament's people.
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: That's gone exactly the other way. They're closing Parliament to
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: the people by reducing the opportunities to do things. Now
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  Speaker 3: one of the other ones, and people might remember that
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: we did have a Council of Territory Cooperation. Now it
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: worked for a while and it had its problems, but
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  Speaker 3: it was trying to join both sides of Parliament together
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  Speaker 3: to look at issues and it was able to do it.
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  Speaker 2: This is a different thing. It was able to do
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  Speaker 2: it on its own motion.
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  Speaker 3: It did not need approval from the government, or did
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  Speaker 3: not approval from the legs of Assembly could get that
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: if they wanted to. But we now have a Public
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: Amounts Committee, which was a part of that was changed
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: to copy the Council of Territory Cooperation, except it couldn't
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: do it unless the government allowed it to do it.
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: So it could look at anything it wanted to. But
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: if the government said, well, we don't want that to happen,
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: then it didn't happen. So the Public Accounts Committee theoretically
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: could look at, say, an issue that's around at the
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: moment's a bit of issues about landing clearing, for instance,
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: and the governments and what the government could do say well,
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: we're going to put this issue out to the Public
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: Accounts Committee, because it doesn't look just at accounts if
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: you read what they're allowed to do. So we could
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: get in the part Ustill Board could get in, the
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: Environment Center could get in, some of the media who
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: could get in, a range of farmers, a whole group
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: of people could be asked to present themselves to their
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: Public Accounts Committee, had public forums to talk about the issue.
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  Speaker 3: Now that's the actual that's to me is really what
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  Speaker 3: Parliament's about. It's including the people. It's discussing an issue
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  Speaker 3: that is a topic that's important, and it's allowing people
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: to hear both sides of the argument and actually try
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: and get to the truth. Is this the media beat
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: up or is actually a real issue, So.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: We're not allowing that yet. It also, governments can make statements.
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  Speaker 3: Now you look in the Standing Orders ament, minister used
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: to get up and make statements. They used to make
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: them off and sometimes they used to do it so
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: they could fill in time when they didn't have a
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: lot of work to do in Parliament. But a minister
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: for say, agriculture might get up and talk about the
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: cotton industry, might get up talk about mining, might talk
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: about something else, social crime, and they would make that statement.
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  Speaker 3: They can talk for quite a while and then everybody
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: in Parliament actually can give their opinion on that statement. Now,
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: I don't know whether that's happened very often, but that
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: is a way that then you create debate. But the
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  Speaker 3: government's got to be brave enough to say, well, we're
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: going to put this issue out and will allow the
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  Speaker 3: parliament to debate it.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: Because to meet parliament.
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  Speaker 3: I remember myself looking at pictures of the Roman You
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: know the senators all in there, I call them their sheets,
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  Speaker 3: but you know they used their parliament to debate issues,
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  Speaker 3: and we really need to make sure that our parliament
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: is open to discuss in these difficult issues.
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  Speaker 2: Sometimes I don't think it does so much.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: I think that is such an important point to make, Jerry,
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  Speaker 1: because that's people feel like they're not being listened to
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  Speaker 1: at the moment.
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  Speaker 2: And that's why you had the scrutiny committees.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, we're involved in I'm just trying to think
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: the issues that.
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  Speaker 2: We looked at SI hit program.
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  Speaker 3: So we went out and looked at all the issues
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  Speaker 3: about how many you know, the houses where they are built,
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  Speaker 3: whether they are on Groode Island, whether what I were
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: at Man and greeted. We went out and investigated all
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: those things. We looked at the remember the cattle issue
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: at Mataranka. We had public meetings at Mataranka. People able
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: to come to that meeting and say what they thought. Yeah,
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: there was a blackout with the gas power stations lost there. Yeah, yeah,
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: and that was and that was brought on by the
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: opposition who didn't like the Council of Territory cooperation, but
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: when they had an opportunity to use it, they loved it. Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: And so they're the things that I thought that made
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: Parliament vibrant. It wasn't just you know, we sit there
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: and there's better legislation and we go home. You actually
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: included people this in the discussions. Whether you agree with
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: them or not was irrelevant, but you heard people's views.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and so just you know, just in sort of
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: closing with the with this vote of no confidence or
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: this motion of no confidence that the COLP is trying
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: to push through with. There does sound like these other
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: options in terms of you know, the Council of Territory
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: cooperation is something that we used to have here in
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: the Northern Territory as well as those select committees. Are
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: there other options inside of parliament? You know, like the
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: matter of public importance? I know you said the sense
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: of motion, but that it does sound like there's other
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: things that the opposition could be doing at this point
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  Speaker 1: to make sure that this issue is heard now.
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  Speaker 3: Well, matter of public importance is an option. It depends
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: if there are other matters of public importance on a paper,
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: because you only get one. So I know when I
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: had one, I think Lea came around to my door
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  Speaker 3: and said, can we have ours before yours so you
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: can do negotiations. So it is an option, and I
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: think the government itself needs to be more able. Why
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: don't you make a statement on the alcohol issues in
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: our springs or alcohol in general, or you know, the
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: crime problems. You've got makea statement and then Leah can
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: get up and make a response, and each member if
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: they want to. And it doesn't always happen as long
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: as government doesn't shorten it, because sometimes they can shorten it.
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: They get an agreement used to happen between the opposition
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: and the government. Sometimes say well it only allowed speakers.
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: I just get annoy you, so we'll hang out. I'd
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: like to speak. Yeah, So I sometimes think they should
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: be open to everybody having an opportunity to speak on
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: those issues.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: So, yes, there are other ways.
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: Unfortunately, when you look at it, except for the matter
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: of public importance, the government has some control able what happened.
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: But if the government, as I said, was open and transparent,
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: let the sensor motion run.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: Let it run.
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: And if you've got the good story that you say
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: you have, explain it to people.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: Jerry Wood a man of wisdom as always, and that
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: knowledge that we actually need. I really appreciate you coming
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: in this morning. As always, I want to try and
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: catch up with you a little bit more often when
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Parliament is sitting. I'm keen to have Gary Higgins come
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: on as well if he's keen, and just provide people
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: with that bit of background. I think it's really important
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: for us to sort of get that understanding. You guys
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: have been in there. You've been in there and seen
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: the workings of Parliament for such a long time, and
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: it's good for Territorians to understand exactly what is going on.
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: Thanks Katie, I'll go home and get my feet back
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: on the ground and we we need some more plans
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: out for all this rain.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: Good on you. Thanks so much for your time this morning.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: General, I appreciate it. You