Page 3737 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 22 November 2006
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on the table a bill—the Tasmanian model, which is now accepted in South Australia and, I think, Victoria—which would actually overcome those problems. Clearly, you have a problem with that bill in relation to the federal Marriage Act, so you are snookered either way there.
Unfortunately, this motion today really is a stunt. It is a stunt because of what Ms MacDonald has read out. She has read out a series of comments by Senator Humphries, who did cross the floor but who then made some measured statements in relation to this issue. It is a stunt because this power has only been used once. In Australia, we have a whole series of checks and balances. Most parliaments have two houses—God forbid, the people of the ACT would hate to see that—but we do not. We have a unicameral legislature, just like Queensland.
Federally, you have got the House of Representatives and the Senate. Are you saying that the Senate should be abolished too? There are checks and balances and this power was put in by a Labor government as a check and balance. Ms MacDonald, if we had seen this power used more than just once in the 17 years or so of self-government, I would agree with you. I think that the federal government would be overstepping the mark.
I, too, cringed at some of the stupid comments made by federal members on all sides of the political equation about Canberra. They have no idea. They just go from the airport to Parliament House and then to nice little apartments in Kingston or Manuka and have a meal in those areas—they could go to Griffith; I have seen quite a few eat at the Vietnamese restaurant there—but they do not see much else. It does not matter what political party they are from; all of them are quite capable of making stupid comments from time to time, some more so than others. That is certainly something that we resent. But, looking at what we are debating here, methinks you doth protest too much, Ms MacDonald. Methinks that this is very much a political stunt.
Your government has made a habit of bashing the federal government. That is fine, but often you go that one step too far. The civil unions issue is a case in point. You are actually leaving yourselves a bit behind there because even South Australia and Victoria have adopted the Tasmanian model, which is something that is acceptable Australia-wide. Of course, that was a catalyst for this disallowance.
It would be a problem if this disallowance had happened on, maybe, five or six occasions, but it has happened once since 10 May 1989 when this place started. It is part of the checks and balances. There are still people in this territory who long for the old days when we did not have self-government. That is never going to change and it never was going to change from 1985-86. There are no great altruistic reasons for having self-government here. It is a question of money. I think all major parties, indeed even minor parties, have realised that in terms of the territory governing itself.
For better or worse, generally for the better, this territory has under all governments done a very good job of governing itself and, no doubt, will continue to do so. We can argue in this place about how best to do that and we can argue in this place about whether you should be closing 39 schools and silly things like that, for example, but fundamentally at the end of the day, despite various hiccups along the way, this place has been governed probably no better or worse than any other state or territory in the
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