Page 481 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 8 March 2011
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I do hope that is sorted out. I do hope that that Canberra Liberals will realise that this is an important step forward and will support this motion. I really do hope that they also lobby, as I said earlier, their federal colleagues to support Senator Brown’s legislation, as I would hope that the ALP also will lobby their colleagues to support this important bit of legislation. It is a small step but it is an important step.
As I said, we will not be supporting Mr Seselja’s amendment. We do support Mr Stanhope’s motion, and I very much hope that we are going to see a successful outcome for Senator Brown’s bill.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (12.12): The record will show when this matter is voted on today that the ACT Greens and the ACT Labor Party are opposed to a broad, comprehensive review of the ACT self-government act. What Mr Seselja’s amendment seeks is simply that. It says, “Let’s not do the piecemeal.” When you listen to the rhetoric you would think that everyone in this place was in favour of Mr Seselja’s amendment. What we have heard is that they are all in favour of it but they cannot bring themselves to support it. The effect of this will be that the Greens and the Labor Party in this place will vote against a comprehensive review of the ACT self-government act.
What a parlous state we get ourselves into. The Chief Minister says, “You know, I’ve been working hard on this issue for a very long time but I can’t actually bring myself to vote for it. I can’t bring myself to vote for a motion that calls on the federal parliament, in consultation with this Assembly and the people that we represent, to review the self-government act that governs the ACT.” This is what the record will show.
We have had the most appalling performance in this place today during this quite undignified debate. We have had the appalling performance of Ms Hunter. She had a speech prepared in anticipation of what she thought the Canberra Liberals were going to do. She was so flummoxed that she could move away from the prepared script. She had to seek leave later in the day to actually address Mr Seselja’s amendment when somebody else told her what to do.
We have seen an appalling performance here today by the Greens, the Attorney-General and the Chief Minister himself, who will say, “I think it’s very important that we have a comprehensive review of the self-government act.” The Chief Minister thinks that the most important thing—if you listened to what he said—that we should do in relation to the ACT’s constitution is to have the power to change the size of the Legislative Assembly. He thinks that is the most important thing. “It is an increasingly pressing problem,” he said.
There is no doubt that we have an opportunity here. What is currently happening is that a bill to make a very small amendment to the self-government act is currently before the legal and constitutional affairs committee of the commonwealth Senate. This is an opportunity for us as a whole to say to the federal Senate, through the constitutional and legal affairs committee, that this step is too small, it is insufficient, and that what we need is not a piecemeal approach but a comprehensive approach to the review of the constitution of the Australian Capital Territory.
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