Page 624 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 4 July 1989
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(i) the responsibility for future electoral arrangements;
(ii) the size and structure of the ACT Legislative Assembly;
(iii) the size of the Executive; and
(iv) the role and powers of the Governor-General.
(2) The committee shall report on the first sitting day of 1990.
(3) The committee shall consist of 5 members.
(4) A majority of members constitutes a quorum of the committee.
(5) The committee be provided with necessary staff, facilities and resources.
(6) The foregoing provisions of this resolution, so far as they are inconsistent with the standing orders, have effect notwithstanding anything contained in the standing orders.
MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister) (8.04): Mr Speaker, although the Government welcomes the opportunity to speak to this motion, we do so with awareness of the irony of the moment. The basic issue behind the motion, of course, is not new. The debate over self-government for the ACT has continued for almost 60 years. But the forum in which the debate now occurs, this Assembly, is new and it means that for the first time the people of Canberra can be assured that locally elected representatives consider the issue of self-government in their own territorial Assembly.
Before this year, the 280,000 people who live in the ACT were treated as second-class Australians. Although we paid our taxes and we did express our will at Federal elections, we had no real control over the direction of our own community and no real say in the decisions which affect our lives.
This is an extraordinary admission in a country that has been so committed to democratic ideals. But since the establishment of the first ACT Government, on 11 May 1989, the ACT has joined the democratic tradition that Australians hold dear. In effect, we exercise legislative and executive powers equal to those possessed by the Northern Territory and the States. We participate with them on an equal footing at the Premiers Conference, the Loan Council and other important forums, and we are able to argue at those meetings for a fair go for the people of the ACT.
We determine our own budgetary allocations and indeed the appropriateness of particular programs within the budget. We can elect our own peers to this Assembly and we can determine the fitness of those people to govern. We decide our own future and the future that we leave to our children in the ACT. We have a unique and appropriate form of government which reflects the particular circumstances of the ACT - in particular, the concentration of virtually all our population in one city and the ACT's position as the national capital.
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