Page 1803 - Week 06 - Thursday, 9 May 2013
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thought about centenary celebrations. I am surprised, then, that the government has not thought to do a survey of what the people of Canberra think about doubling the number of their politicians. If we are going to talk about whether people are concerned about queuing for a hotdog and she thinks that that is something worthy of conducting a survey on, why have we not conducted a survey on the people of Canberra asking, “Do you want to double the number of your politicians?” And I call on the Chief Minister to do that. I call on the Chief Minister today to conduct a proper, independent survey—we can have a look at what questions will be asked at the meeting that may occur with myself and Mr Rattenbury—to ask the people of Canberra, “Do you want double the number of politicians?” Because that is what Katy Gallagher is advocating; she says that is her blueprint. Let us ask the people of Canberra. If she refuses to do that survey, one would have to ask why.
Mr Coe: Or we will.
MR HANSON: If the government will not do it then, indeed, as Mr Coe says, we will. We will make sure that we speak to the people, but we are not convinced. A whole bunch of myths have been put forward. Statistics are used in this case to try and say, “We’re under-represented in the ACT.” But some of those comparisons are false. We have a small number of federal parliamentarians compared with the number of federal parliamentarians elsewhere. But that is largely irrelevant to this debate because it is a different jurisdictional responsibility. Federal parliamentarians have their role, we have ours. Saying, “Well, we only have two lower house members and two senators and Tasmania has more than us, therefore, we should double the size of the Assembly,” does not make sense. Doing comparisons with other jurisdictions that have an upper house when we do not again skews the numbers.
It is not relevant to the debate to say, “Look at all the local councillors out there, and we have those jurisdictional responsibilities.” That ignores the fact that most of those councillors are part-time and it again skews the numbers. It also ignores the fact that in other jurisdictions, state and federal, representatives fly in and out or drive in and out from remote locations; they spend only a certain amount of their time in their parliament, maybe a third of the year. We are here all the time. Members are available here for 100 per cent of the year to conduct our responsibilities, be it in the parliament or doing committee work, whilst remaining connected with our communities. We can be in parliament here as we are today, and tonight many of us will be out in our communities at various events, and I will be going to one tonight. Other parliaments do not enjoy that luxury; we do. We are unique in this jurisdiction, so those comparisons in many ways are flawed.
The argument is also put that we are so busy and there is so much demand on this place. Any observer of this place would have seen on Tuesdays and Thursdays in particular that executive business dries up at about 11 or 11.30 in the morning or for an early knock-off at 4 in the afternoon and that an array of backbenchers from the other side then talk on issues and filibuster to try to fill the space on portfolio matters they really have no interest in, where they deliver a speech after being told by Mr Corbell, “Hey, fill in the space.”
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