Page 52 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 23 May 1989
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Mr Collaery was interviewed by the press in front of this building. He then said, "Well, I will have to leave you now to return to that travesty".
He referred to this chamber as a travesty, and it was repeated the following day on the Pru Goward show on 2CN when that issue was taken up again. But, more importantly, on that following day Mr Collaery said, "The fact is that this current Assembly is totally immoral".
That sort of behaviour, that sort of attack upon our chamber, is completely inexcusable and unacceptable, and must be rejected and resisted at every turn. I appeal to you, Mr Speaker, to protect this chamber from assaults by this man and to protect the integrity of our chamber so that it is something to be proud of in the future.
MR JENSEN (4.12): I know time must be running out in this debate, so I will not take up too much of my fellow members' time. I rise to support Mr Collaery. I must remind members that Mr Collaery was nominated by Mr Moore for the position of Opposition Leader to determine the extent of the vote in relation to this particular issue - to see and to flush out the situation and the arrangements and deals that have been made.
Once again I remind the Assembly that the ACT (Self-Government) Act provides for the election of a Chief Minister, but it does not provide for the election of a Leader of the Opposition, as my colleague Mr Collaery has quite clearly pointed out.
Mr Kaine and the Liberal Party were keen, I seem to recall, during and in the lead-up to the election campaign, and even in the period after the votes had been cast and were being counted in that long period that we all seem to recall, to talk about the introduction of a collegiate government system.
That was one of the systems and one of the arrangements that we as members of the Residents Rally were keen to see in operation. That was one of the reasons why we were negotiating with the Liberal Party, with the Labor Party and also with the No Self Government Party - and we even had a few discussions with Dennis Stevenson just to make sure that he was not left out in the cold.
In relation to this development of the collegiate system that Mr Kaine was so keen to talk about, members may recall during the election campaign that the Residents Rally was also keen to see such a system operate in this place. It was one of the areas that I personally spoke about at some length. It was one of the areas that I wrote about and spoke about, and accounts were printed in the local media.
If it was good enough to have a collegiate government system why was it not good enough to have a collegiate system of opposition? That was one of the things that we thought Mr Kaine may have been interested in.
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