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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 11 Hansard (29 November) . . Page.. 3448 ..

MR MOORE (Minister for Health, Housing and Community Care) (8.28): Mr Speaker, I rise not to withdraw any language but to say that, having listened to the debate and having looked at the amendment and the foreshadowed amendment, I have shifted my position and will accept Ms Tucker's motion as amended by Mr Stanhope's amendment, if that is what goes through. I think that we would come up with a fairly sensible motion with the version that was read out by Mr Smyth and I am quite comfortable about going with other members in that approach.

MR HARGREAVES (8.29): Mr Speaker, I sat here dumbfounded as the government tried to take the credit for the adoption of a bipartisan approach and accused us of discovering the street called Damascus Road. Mr Speaker, I thought that Mr Smyth's speech was full of gratuitous comments which were totally uncalled for in this rather serious debate. A little bit of a jibe across the chamber is always good for entertainment, but I do not think that his comments were quite necessary.

It was a bit rich of Mr Smyth to cite as an achievement having an Independent in the government, describing it as a major innovation in government processing, as it was nothing more than a matter of the survival of the government of the day which happened to have some measure of success. Mr Speaker, I urge people to support the position of Mr Stanhope and Ms Tucker on this issue, which is a very serious matter. I urge the government to go into this consultation process with an honest approach, which is something that, I suspect, occasionally it does not do. I do not think it always goes into consultation processes honestly. Often it only pays lip service to the consultation process, having predetermined ideas. I hope that the consultation process will work this time and that the Chief Minister has learned a lesson from Mr Stanhope about open consultation.

MR WOOD (8.30): Mr Speaker, it is clear that the Liberals want the Assembly to have 21 members. Perhaps they want it to have more than 21 members, but they certainly want it to have 21 members. I was disturbed to see Mr Smyth stand up and try to draw the Labor Party into the same arena on bipartisanship by saying, "Good, you are going to talk about it and we are going to think seriously about it." I am sure that he wants to go out there and say, "The Labor Party is on side as we look at these issues."

Mr Moore: No, he said a joint press release; in that way you both agree to it.

MR WOOD: No, it was much more than that, Mr Moore. It is a very smart move, with smart words and smart running around the issue, by Mr Smyth to try to say that the Labor Party wants 21 members. The Labor Party has great reservations about that. At this time, we do not want 21 members. As we stand now, we do not want 21 members, but we are prepared to have some community consultation to hear what the community says. We are going to take a lot of convincing, I would believe. We certainly do not want the fairly specific guidelines that Ms Tucker laid down. We would want a rather more open-ended discussion, if we are going to have one at all. But we have great reservations about increasing the membership to 21.

Let me go back to the nexus between 17 members and the population we had in 1989, as though that was so well-founded that we could rely on it for future growth, if growth is what some people here want. Those of us who were here at the time know as well as

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