Page 5094 - Week 17 - Wednesday, 12 December 1990
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The reasons are that the local representatives see themselves perhaps not as politicians, perhaps not as masters of the people, but as servants of the people. One can go through North Sydney and count 45 notice boards throughout the Municipal Council where there are listed council agenda and other matters of interest to the people of that particular municipality. Indeed, people in local community groups have the opportunity and the right to display on those notice boards information that they feel people should know about. What a wonderful idea that is. In addition, all agendas are available and displayed three days prior to any meeting, as are reports that are going to be tabled. Is not that a marvellous thing? In this Assembly, not even members of the Assembly - I might add, not even Government members of the Assembly - get reports that far in advance of sittings.
The situation in North Sydney allows 24 different precincts. The municipality is broken up into 24 areas. They are called precincts. There are citizens council groups, if you like, formed in those areas, and they are given information by the government on what the government is thinking of doing. They are also asked what they would like the government to do. Is this too much to ask of the ACT Legislative Assembly? Is it beyond our capability to perhaps inform the people in Canberra of what we are doing, what we intend to do or even what we have done? I would suggest that we should take out regular space in the paper and at that time include those things that people would like to know about. If we cannot determine what they would like to know about, we could perhaps ask them in a survey. But I think they would like to know what Bills are going to be proposed, if the Government knows they are going to propose them, some long time in advance, even before the Bill is tabled.
Certainly once the Bill is tabled they could be told what the Bill is about, in simple terms - and all that it is about. They could also be told in advance when the Bill is scheduled for debate in this Assembly, specifically and particularly those Bills that greatly concern people in Canberra. I think many people, if they knew, would like the opportunity to come along to this Assembly and hear their members debate both sides, or more, of various issues. The situation we have is that again and again in this Assembly Bills are introduced and passed without there being sufficient time for public consultation.
The Labor Party has mentioned publicly recently that the Alliance Government has not allowed time and is forcing Bills through. Well, I do not think many of us would disagree with that. What the Labor Party did not mention at the time is that when they had the power they did exactly the same thing; they passed Bills in one day, two days, five days, a week, and so on. It seems that it is perfectly okay to do something when you have the power to do it, but when in opposition one takes an entirely different stated viewpoint and condemns that which one has
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