Page 3209 - Week 11 - Thursday, 13 September 1990
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and which could have led to what is better for the community of Canberra. What is made clear by this issue is that the last thing the Government has in mind is what is in the best interests of the community of Canberra. Again and again we have seen that it has been overridden by what it considers to be in its best interests.
MR KAINE (Chief Minister) (11.24): Mr Speaker, what we are talking about here is quite fundamental to the future of this Assembly, and I understand the consternation of the members of the Opposition when the effects of a provision in the self-government Act seem to prohibit the kinds of things that they would like to do. I can understand their frustration and their consternation at this.
There are a number of things in the self-government Act, Mr Speaker, on which I think we should be questioning the reasons why the Commonwealth wrote them in there. I think this is one. This provision, section 65, says that a Bill, the effect of which is to charge money against the consolidated fund, shall be presented only by a Minister. In my understanding this goes much further than the provision in the Commonwealth Parliament itself, and when you look at its effects you have to ask what the Commonwealth parliament had in mind when it passed this Bill. Did the members write those words in there deliberately to impose a constraint on the actions of this parliament, or was it inadvertent, or did they simply not understand the consequences of it?
It is not the only provision in the Act that I have difficulty with. There has been discussion before on, for example, the things that can prevent a member of this Assembly taking his or her seat. There is a provision in here which I will not go into but which is again quite different to the provision that is in all other parliamentary arrangements. This provision allows people to take their seats in this Assembly under conditions which would exclude them from taking their seats in other houses. I do not know why the Commonwealth wrote this in here either, but I think there are some questions.
We have recently had a debate in the house about the ability of the Chief Minister to appoint a requisite number of Ministers. Why did the Commonwealth see fit to prescribe that the Chief Minister can appoint only three other Ministers? This house is going to grow in size over the years; it will not always be 17 people. To prescribe that the Chief Minister must appoint three, and three only, Ministers is, in my view, quite prescriptive. It does not apply to any other parliament. The Premier or the Chief Minister in other parliaments in Australia determines how many Ministers he believes he needs to administer the State or the Territory.
So, there are a number of things in this Act that I think need to be questioned. I have some sympathy with the views of the Opposition on this particular prescription. I think
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