Page 249 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 30 May 1989
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While it was quite clear during the election campaign that there were people in this Territory who did not want self-government, or people who did not like the way it had been foisted upon them without real consultation, they were also concerned about other decisions that had been forced upon them, like the casino and the voting system. I agree, Mr Speaker, that this sort of unrepresentative decision making and the fear that self-government was going to cost them more were major factors in ensuring that representatives from the No Self Government Party and Abolish Self Government Coalition are also sitting in this Assembly today.
However, a clear majority of residents voted for self-government, so the responsibility is with us all to ensure that we make this new Assembly work. I trust that in due course many of the out-of-town media will return to say that we can govern ourselves after all. The ball, as they say, Mr Speaker, is squarely in our court.
This leads me to comment very briefly on one aspect that the Chief Minister raised in her speech that is dear to the hearts of the Rally and our supporters. It is one of the reasons why many of us became involved in the election, and an issue that I have already alluded to. I am, of course, referring to a commitment to community consultation and participation in the decision making process, a factor that my colleague Mr Collaery also referred to in his remarks in this debate. This was a clear commitment given by the Rally during the campaign, and we intend to make sure that the Government is continually reminded of the commitment by the Chief Minister to this concept. To obtain Rally support for issues where it is appropriate, the Government will have to honour this commitment, and we will be reminding them, Mr Speaker, if they fail.
Many of us in the Rally recall how the NCDC finally sought to improve its image in this area in the final stages of its existence - a death, Mr Speaker, which you will no doubt recall was inflicted by a Federal Minister who had no electoral responsibility to the people of the ACT. I refer to this because this decision resulted in a situation where we now have two - I repeat, two - planning authorities responsible for our city, a predicament that even visiting planning experts as well as our own home grown specialists have found incredible. The Rally will be seeking to ensure, now that we have been forced to live with this travesty, that the National Capital Plan and the Territory Plan are able to coexist as much as possible, and the potential for conflict that has already appeared in some areas is reduced.
I also feel, Mr Speaker, that I should comment briefly on my own feeling on a fact that we have a minority government and a formal opposition. I have no doubt that these comments would have been made regardless of which party had formed a minority government and an opposition. As some of
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