Page 4667 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 7 December 1994
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MS SZUTY (11.32): I, too, will be brief. I also am not going to attack Mr Berry for putting up a silly motion. I think that he has raised an issue that is worthy of this Assembly's consideration. I would like to make some points about it. The first clause of Mr Berry's motion notes that members are elected to serve the community in a full-time capacity. I think every member of this Assembly today has acknowledged that we all serve this Assembly in a full-time capacity, but there are other elements of our lives that we are all involved with. Nonetheless, I understand where Mr Berry is coming from. Certainly, the community has expectations that all of us will work long hours and will serve them to the best of our ability, and I believe that we do that.
I have some difficulty with the second clause of Mr Berry's motion. It states:
Members so elected should not engage in the activities of any business, trade or profession in the course of their term in the ACT Legislative Assembly.
I believe that that is unnecessarily restrictive and prescriptive and that it locks out a number of various opportunities that are available to members and that they might like to pursue in the other hours of their days.
I would make the point that inequities can exist between members of this Assembly who are elected from various bases. Some of us have business backgrounds; some of us have community backgrounds. It is not always easy to transfer the experience that we have gained prior to coming into this Assembly to our lifestyles in the Assembly. So, I do acknowledge that inequities can exist between members, given the backgrounds that they come from. I would also like to make the point that many of us, apart from business, trade, or various professional interests, have other components to our lives which might involve a study program or which might involve caring for our families and other important people in our lives, and we certainly should not lose sight of that.
I will take the opportunity to comment on Mrs Carnell's proposition about giving the opportunity for MLAs to experience various activities outside the life of this Assembly. While I think that some experience in the business sector would be beneficial to a number of members of this Assembly, I also can think of another range of experiences which would assist other members of this Assembly. When Mrs Carnell first proposed this I thought it might be very useful for Mr Humphries, for example, to spend a week in a classroom, given Mr Humphries's recent experience as Minister for Education. That, to me, seemed like a useful activity for Mr Humphries to do for a week. I am sure that there are other activities that members could think of that would be suited to various members of this Assembly. Mr Humphries, I believe, has not completed his Christmas adjournment speech for this year, but perhaps I have given him an idea for a topic that he might like to address this year, and that is the various work experiences that he thinks might be suitable for members of this Assembly. I will not be supporting Mr Berry's motion because I believe that it is unnecessarily restrictive and prescriptive.
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