Labor sees red as state parliament pushed back by one week

PREMIER Jeremy Rockliff has been accused of delaying scrutiny after a decision to prorogue parliament to allow for a new member for Franklin to be present in the House of Assembly.

Mr Rockliff on Monday announced MPs would sit from August 16 for two weeks instead of from next week.

The decision comes as the government continues to deal with the fallout from Liberal MP Jacquie Petrusma’s shock resignation.

Ms Petrusma resigned from parliament last week to spend more time with her family, with the recount to decide her successor on August 15.

“This is important so we can have our new Liberal member for Franklin in parliament,” Mr Rockliff said.

“There will still be two sitting weeks in August, as originally scheduled.”

Labor leader Rebecca White said the government was delaying scrutiny on its decisions.

“This is a major disruption to the work of the parliament and a major disruption to the work of government and it’s only occurring because this weak government has a revolving door of ministers exiting stage left,” Ms White said.

“We need to be able to hold this government to account for its decisions.

“There’s no parliament, therefore there’s no question time, there’s no progress on legislation.”

Without a member for Franklin, the government is in the precarious position of having 12 members instead of 13, meaning it wouldn’t have a majority on the floor of parliament.

Ms White said the government had been given the assurances it needed to continue to function.

“We offered our support for the government to pass any money bills, we wouldn’t block the budget issues, we offered to not move motions of no confidence.”

Mr Rockliff said proroguing parliament was necessary to avoid Labor pulling “stunts”.

“While it was always my clear preference to not delay parliament, in the past week I have received conflicting correspondence from the Labor leader, as well as clear intentions from Dean Winter to use parliament to play stunts – which is not acceptable,” Mr Rockliff said.

The Premier denied the deferral was a sign of dysfunction in the government, following a spate of ministerial retirements.