Page 3743 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 22 November 2006
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Whether or not the civil unions disallowance was a populist or a moral decision made by the Howard government is irrelevant. If anyone here supports the Howard government’s decision on this basis, be warned that they are also supporting a dangerous precedent in ACT governance history. Removing the ability of the federal executive to disallow ACT legislation does not compromise the capacity of the federal government to exercise its constitutional authority over the ACT.
Since we are not able to become our own state, we cannot avoid the constitutional power that the federal parliament holds over us. As Senator Carr rightly put it in the debate on 14 September regarding Bob Brown’s bill, the ACT self-government act has been in operation for 17 years and, just like any other act, it would be a good idea to review it. Perhaps the performance of the ACT in governing itself warrants progression in our independence.
Mr Stefaniak said, and said it a number of times, that the ACT was given self-government purely for pecuniary reasons on the part of the commonwealth. Whether or not this is true, and there is obviously some truth in it, we must remember, however, that it was also in response to a very strong and growing movement in the ACT for self-government. I believe that we have in our practice transcended that particular model for self-government and I believe that our highly educated and informed community has a model of democracy that is commensurate with that.
We all complain—I complain a bit more—that ACT people are much more focused on the federal level at the expense of the local level, even though it is at the local level that most of the services that make their day-to-day lives possible are delivered. It is up to us then to show that having independence, having self-government in the ACT, is of benefit to people and makes their lives more worthwhile, whether we do engage with those issues that the federal parliament is focused on, such as climate change and human rights.
I believe that the Liberals in this place are trying to have their cake and eat it too. They enjoy the benefits of being elected members of this Assembly and in election campaigns they tout all the things that they might be going to do when they are elected—don’t worry, I have heard them—with absolute certainty that they will be allowed to do so and not be overruled by a commonwealth government. They have the wonderful security at the moment of knowing that their decisions will not be overturned, if they do ever make government, by a Liberal federal government, but what would happen if the boot was on the other foot and there was a Labor federal government and a Liberal majority in this house? I do not think that the Liberals would like that very much. In fact, I think that they might be arguing the other way. Just remember that there is a certain amount of self-interest in this debate and declare it, own it. Let’s all work together to make this territory a place where our ability to govern ourselves is respected.
MR STANHOPE (Ginninderra—Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Business and Economic Development, Minister for Indigenous Affairs and Minister for the Arts) (11.31): At its heart, as we all know, this motion is about the democratic rights of the people of the Australian Capital Territory and whether the people of the Australian Capital Territory should be accorded the same respect in the context of
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