Page 3738 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 22 November 2006
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Commonwealth of Australia and, no doubt, that will continue over time. We can always argue about how we could do it better.
Ms MacDonald: So the commonwealth should let us do it, then.
MR STEFANIAK: The fact is, Ms MacDonald, that they are letting you do it. At this stage, this is part of the checks and balances. You are seizing on one issue, one disallowance only, to change everything. I think you are being premature. You are being premature, but it is also quite clear to me—I can read it in what you have actually said—that this is very much a stunt and part of your ongoing personal war with this particular federal government.
My amendment simply seeks to delete paragraph (3), so it leaves the guts of the motion intact, reinforcing the point that we are here to do a job and the commonwealth should respect our right to do so, which, based on the facts—and they speak for themselves—they do, apart from this one incident. Maybe, Ms MacDonald, if we had more incidents like that, there would be a lot of strength in what you say. But I do not think you have made your case.
Look at some of the things that have occurred since self-government. I hark back to the First Assembly. I hark back to a number of other issues. I hark back to a number of things that ACT governments have done that the federal government certainly did not want it to do, such as former Chief Minister Kate Carnell’s shooting gallery, the heroin injection room she wanted to see, and various issues like that which were quite abhorrent to the majority of people in the Howard government at the time that they were being mooted.
I am sure that there were a number of things done by former Labor governments which were not exactly terribly popular with the powers that be when there was a Hawke-Keating government, but nothing happened. Nothing even happened when we had high farce in the First Assembly over fluoride. Fluoride was in, then it was out and then it was back in again. That was quite entertaining, but nothing happened then. This is the first time that something has actually happened and I think it is quite clear that what you are doing here is a stunt. Accordingly, I commend the amendment I have circulated. We are very happy to support the points in paragraphs (1) and (2) of Ms MacDonald’s motion. I formally move as an amendment:
Omit paragraph (3).
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for Police and Emergency Services and Minister for Planning) (11.11): Mr Speaker, I am pleased to rise to support this motion today. I think the Liberal Party need to be a little more circumspect about their approach on this matter, because there are more fundamental issues at stake than the petty partisan point scoring that we have from those opposite in their attempt to defend the indefensible.
First, I draw members’ attention to a bit of background. On 19 June this year, as we know, Senator Brown introduced into the commonwealth parliament a bill to amend the self-government act. That bill was pretty unexceptional. It proposed to amend section 35 of the act to remove the provisions that appear to give the
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .