Page 388 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 21 February 1990
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Whilst I support the general concept of the motion, I agree with Mr Humphries that it is very badly worded. I also oppose the amendment that Mr Collaery is putting of just leaving the issue totally to the Government. I think it is a matter that should have a bipartisan approach and agreement and I think that the policing of the ACT is a very important matter. It touches everybody in the community and it would have a great deal more credibility if the establishment of a select committee to look at this had the support of all parties in the Assembly.
I have attempted to play around with this and move an appropriate amendment, but so far I have not been able to come up with the appropriate wording. Probably the approach that we should take is to establish that select committee and allow it to make its recommendations in the normal way, as committee always do. In that way we can have a logical and rational approach to this debate that takes into account all the concerns that have been expressed here this morning.
MR KAINE (Chief Minister) (11.35): I will be quite brief. I think that Mr Humphries has really put his finger on the nub of the problem with this motion put forward by Opposition members. They were not really interested in achieving anything; they just wanted to finger the Government. That is why their motion is framed in the way that it is. They did not want the Assembly to do anything; they just wanted to be able to say that the Government ought to be doing something. I oppose that approach on two grounds, Mr Speaker. The first is the simple and basic fact that the business of government is the business of government, and the other is that we do have a timing problem.
On the first point, it is the responsibility of government to get on with the business of government. When Opposition members were in government, once in a while, when it suited them, they thought they should refer something to one of the Assembly's committees instead of doing their own work for themselves. A notable example was the reference to an Assembly committee of the inquiry into disposal of garbage. If a government cannot determine what it is going to do about disposal of garbage without throwing it on to an Assembly committee, what is it capable of? In fact, it proved that it was capable of nothing and that was typical of the way it went about its business.
This is a very significant matter which is the responsibility of the Government to resolve, and the Government will get on and do it - sensibly, of course. When we have come to a final conclusion on how the matter should be dealt with, we will put it to the Assembly for its endorsement and approval. But the Assembly does not have to be, nor should it be, involved in the detailed development of policies or the detailed development of proposals to implement policies. The Assembly, by all
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