Page 767 - Week 02 - Thursday, 10 March 2011
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Assembly with the tenor and content of some of the other submissions that have been made to the Senate committee’s inquiry into this bill?
MR STANHOPE: I thank Mr Hargreaves. The—
Mrs Dunne: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Can I seek your ruling? Mr Hargreaves asked, I think, a three or four-part question. Are supplementary questions allowed to be multi-part questions?
Mr Hargreaves: On the point of order, please, Mr Speaker, the first part was related to the first part of the question and the second. It was not a double part. It was relating to the whole question.
MR SPEAKER: The timing is sublime, Mrs Dunne. There is no point of order. I think that members will observe that, whilst it is not ideal, there are occasions when members express themselves sometimes through a double part. I have given some flexibility on that and I seek to be consistent across that. I am not encouraging it but I do not think Mr Hargreaves’s question substantially flouted the standing order.
MR STANHOPE: Thank you, Mr Speaker. The other issue I did raise in my submission was around the view that this government holds—a view on which we would prefer to consult, of course—that a preamble to our self-government act should be able to be amended at the request of this Assembly to reflect, if it is the view of the community and the Assembly, that we should recognise prior Indigenous ownership of the ACT as other governments are doing.
Going to Mr Hargreaves’s other part of the question, I also have the submission from the Northern Territory, and I do recommend it to members. What I recommend most particularly is the fact that it is a joint submission between the Labor Party and the Liberal Party of the Northern Territory. The Liberal Party in the Northern Territory was mature enough to work with the government and was prepared to stand up for the electors of the Northern Territory and ask for this particular provision of the self-government act to be repealed.
I also have, of course, other submissions and I would place particularly—(Time expired.)
MS HUNTER: A supplementary, Mr Speaker?
MR SPEAKER: Yes, Ms Hunter.
MS HUNTER: Thank you. Chief Minister, are you aware if all or any of the ACT’s federal representatives are supporting Senator Brown’s bill?
MR STANHOPE: Yes, and it is a great disappointment and we await with interest a sight of the Liberal Party of the ACT’s, the opposition’s, submission to the Senate inquiry. I understand that the Leader of the Opposition has indicated the Liberal Party will be making a submission on its own behalf, but that is not yet up or not yet authorised for publication so I have not yet been able to sight that.
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