Page 2520 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 17 June 2009
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Assembly and the federal parliament may have had. Working together may be able to improve or enhance the understanding from the federal parliament and federal parliamentarians or the government around the importance of what we are proposing here, the importance of the fact that the citizens of the ACT do enjoy the same democratic rights as others in Australia. So while the notion of an Assembly committee was attractive, it could only ever be a small step towards the matter getting addressed by the commonwealth.
In the end, my advice was that it probably would be more immediate and constructive if the Assembly directs its energies at the commonwealth government sooner rather than later. I note that this has been 20 years, so I think it should be sooner rather than later.
However, to look at the motion that has been amended by Mr Corbell will be a step forward in our attempts to give the Assembly the right level of accountability and authority over the matters for which it is responsible. And so—somewhat reluctantly in a way, because I would have liked that remonstrance to go through—we will be supporting this amendment. I pick up on what Mr Corbell said: this is not our act; it is a federal act. It will need the commonwealth government to come on board, and ultimately the commonwealth parliament. That was the point of the remonstrance—to be able to talk directly from this Assembly to the commonwealth.
So we will be supporting this amendment. I thank members who have been involved in the negotiations over the last few days.
That is why we are standing at this point supporting Mr Corbell’s amendment with Mr Seselja’s amendment. I have spoken to explain that I believe that it would have slowed matters down and that it would not have had the same impact as having this joint ACT and commonwealth group look at how we might be able to reform the act.
At 6.00 pm, in accordance with standing order 34, the debate was interrupted. The motion for the adjournment of the Assembly having been put and negatived, the debate was resumed.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for the Environment, Climate Change and Water, Minister for Energy and Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (6.00): The government will not be supporting Mr Seselja’s amendment today. It is not because the issues that Mr Seselja raises are not important; they are important and they are of concern. The circumstances in which there was an impasse in this Assembly to the extent that it would be unworkable and how that would be resolved are important constitutional questions for the territory and for this place. They are issues that need to be addressed in our constitution in the event—I hope the extremely unlikely event—that the Assembly is unworkable. Nevertheless, Mr Seselja raises important and legitimate concerns about that.
What is less legitimate is his suggestion that this approach is being engineered in such a way as to achieve an outcome that benefits one political party over another. That position is an odd and somewhat spurious conspiracy theory that Mr Seselja uses to try to walk away from some fundamental principles. The fundamental principles have
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