Correct me if I’m wrong … but this is the way I read it …
The Legislative Council has finished its hearings and a report is being written by the committee’s secretary Stuart Wright under the guidance of the Chair (Paul Harriss).
But it’s not a committee report.
It’s the Chairman’s report.
Paul Harriss basically decides what goes in and what gets left out.
At the end of deliberations, if a member doesn’t agree then they have to write a dissenting report.
That – in my decades-long experience as a gallery observer – rarely happens.
The Tasmanian public probably assumes that the committee decides what goes in and what gets left out.
It doesn’t.
The members have little say in the preparation.
They see a draft towards the end.
The Chair – Paul Harriss – assumes a fairly autocratic role, a point made earlier by John Hawkins in: Contracts and Collusion: The Underbelly of Forestry Tasmania. Julia pledge on pulp mill .
Now this is an interesting question: To what extent do standing orders/protocols /conventions dictate this supreme role, in this instance, for Paul Harriss?
And really what’s the point of waiting three months for his opinion?
I think we already know it …
