Page 1061 - Week 06 - Thursday, 27 July 1989
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There is one further item that I would like to mention in relation to the need to have a different pattern of sitting. There is, for example, only one item of private members business which is on the business paper as a result of our activities yesterday and today. All other matters of private business have been dealt with and thus have been removed from the business paper, and that leaves only Mrs Nolan's motion in relation to the front fences referral to the planning committee. So I would submit, Mr Speaker, that we have a pattern here of sitting days which accommodates the Government's legislative program.
There was just one final point that I wanted to mention. We do have a very firm commitment to the consultation process in relation to the budget, and it is proposed that we would use all the time available during the month of August to pursue that consultation process. There will be formal consultation spread over several days with members of a budget consultative committee but then, in addition to that, specialist groups will be further consulting with individual Ministers in relation to specific parts of the budget.
So we will be extremely active, and already the diaries are pretty heavily loaded with appointments in relation to that consultation process during the month of August. Bearing in mind all those points, we would submit that the program that we have submitted is an adequate one for the balance of the year.
MR COLLAERY (12.22): I will make some general comments because my colleague Mr Jensen handles these details and, if I sounded confused the other day when I got into another joust with my colleague Mr Kaine, it was basically because I was speaking about the principle of sittings rather than the actual detail.
Mr Speaker, the Rally does not accept the comparison of projected ACT Assembly sittings for the simple reason - to use the Deputy Chief Minister's favourite word - that it is totally fallacious. This is something more than a State parliament. This has a municipal character to it, this Assembly. Most municipalities meet quite often, probably once a week at the least, like the Sydney and Melbourne councils and corporations.
So we do not believe that the comparison of projected Assembly sittings with those for the other parliaments is a prime guide for this Assembly. This Assembly has a local government interface and this Assembly has, in its early months, put great responsibility upon all members.
The other thing that makes us different from the other parliaments is that this Government is a minority government. Mr Speaker, I draw your attention to section 17 of the Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Act. There it says, in subsection 17(1)(b), that the Assembly shall meet within seven days after a written
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