Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I have a question to you which relates to the RU486 bill. As we have been discussing, the bill before the House is a private members’ bill which has come from the Senate. A conscience vote has been extended by all political parties. Consequently, in participating in this debate, every member of the House has identical status to every other member of the House. It is not one of those government business propositions where the minister is in a special position vis-a-vis other members of the House. In light of the fact that every member of the House is in the same position as every other member of the House in dealing with this proposition, my question to you is about the appropriateness of a member of the government executive, most particularly the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Health and Ageing, using the resources of executive government to procure advice in relation to the private members’ bill, particularly advice which has not been provided in its original form to all members of the House who are seeking to vote and express a view on the private members’ bill before the House.

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