Page 625 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 4 July 1989
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The form of government is a hybrid which has not been seen before in this country, but it was developed to suit the particular geographic, political and administrative circumstances of the ACT and it offers special challenges and opportunities to the ACT Assembly.
Because we combine State and local tiers of government we can avoid some of the duplication that inevitably occurs elsewhere in Australia and we can strive for a lean and efficient model of administration. It is not widely appreciated that this model is significantly smaller than traditional administrations. In regard to the ratio of Federal, State and local elected representatives to population, in the ACT there is only one politician for every 13,041 people. This compares with the Northern Territory where there is one politician for every 1,924 people and New South Wales where the statistic is one politician for every 3,039 people.
As well as that, the ratio of State and local public servants to the population is quite low in the ACT. The ratio here is 1:16. In the Northern Territory the ratio of public servants to population is 1:9.4 and in New South Wales it is 1:13, so our figures compare very favourably there.
While we can take some pride in these figures, we cannot rest on them and we must acknowledge that the rights of self-government also include the responsibilities of management. The system of government that we have in the ACT has been radically changed over the past few years. The territorial functions of no fewer than 12 Commonwealth departments have been merged into one ACT Administration and those functions have been consolidated into a single, stand-alone ACT budget.
This system will change even further as we progress in self-government and it is our desire to make the system more responsive, more accountable, more accessible and more open to ACT citizens. I believe it would be silly to pretend that we have a perfect system - there is no such thing as a perfect system - but we do have it in our hands to develop a system that serves all of the citizens of the ACT and that all of those citizens can be proud of.
The future for the ACT is made in this Assembly and it is made by people from the ACT. Mr Speaker, I grew up in the ACT, I went to school here, I have worked here and I know that there is at least one member in this Assembly who was born here. Those sorts of statements are not the kinds of statements that any Commonwealth Minister responsible for the ACT has been able to make.
The basic provision of self-government is that it allows me, other members here, and all the people in the ACT to determine how the ACT is run. It is particularly appropriate then that this Assembly considers the form of
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