Page 2032 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 5 August 2014
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state and local government roles in one set of functions does place a significant burden on the Assembly, and having the additional members will allow for some of the additional capacities that have been discussed earlier today—a possible increase in the size of the ministry, a capacity for members to have less of a committee workload and therefore spend more time on each committee. I think these are the sort of positive benefits that will improve the governance as the population of the ACT increases and the complexity of issues that we are facing increases.
There will undoubtedly be more discussion about this, but I look forward to the fact that we have now locked down what the model is going to be for the 2016 election. I look forward to the Electoral Commissioner getting underway with the redistribution task that he and his colleagues must now perform. I think we will all be keenly watching that process, and I am certainly confident that the Greens can perform strongly in 2016 in the framework that has been created.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Minister for the Environment and Minister for Capital Metro) (5.35), in reply: This bill is a stand-alone bill made under the commonwealth Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Act 1988. The relevant provisions in the commonwealth act set the size of the Assembly at 17 “or other number under an enactment”. Any such enactment has no effect unless passed by a two-thirds majority of the Legislative Assembly.
This bill is therefore that enactment. It provides for a determined number made for the first time by the Legislative Assembly itself. The provisions that allow the Assembly to determine its size were addressed through amendments to the self-government act made by the previous federal Labor government, and they are a welcome change that provides for this place to determine its own destiny.
These changes will not have any effect unless they are adopted by a two-thirds majority of the Assembly, and they are an important change. They provide for an increase that reflects the growth and complexity of governance in the territory, in terms of the scope and range of ACT government functions, the matters that the community as a whole expects this place to address, and the need to have sufficient numbers of members to allow those issues to be effectively addressed.
It is particularly important not just in terms of the size of the executive, as critical as that is, but also in terms of the size of the non-executive—those non-executive members of this place, whether on government or opposition benches, or indeed crossbenches, who all play a critical role in their respective ways to hold the executive to account, to question it on its behaviour and its procedures, policies, practices and programs, and to advance those issues of concern to the people those members are here to represent.
These changes therefore are part of the ever-maturing nature of self-government in the territory, and provide us with new opportunities to best represent the interests of the people of the Australian Capital Territory. I commend the bill to the Assembly.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
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