Page 409 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 19 February 1991
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The people of the ACT are now sophisticated. We are sophisticated enough to be able to identify the type of electoral system that we would prefer to have in place here in our own polity. For that reason I endorse the motion of Mr Moore. I would certainly endorse any calls upon the Federal Parliament to do the right and honourable thing and allow a referendum to go ahead to enable the whole issue that we have been debating tonight to be settled.
MR BERRY (8.47): I was not going to speak on this debate; I was saving my energy for a later one. But after some of the hogwash that has flowed in relation to this matter I felt that something had to be said about the issue of principle and where people ought to stand. I think the most interesting contribution to the debate was made by the Chief Minister. He made it clear that he supported the moves by the Federal Minister to resolve some of the problems, and I think the Federal Minister has to be given support for the work he is doing to further satisfy the perceived wishes of the ACT electorate. I think it has to be said that Minister Simmons has done a lot of work and he has to be congratulated for working towards a solution within the Federal Parliament whereby the needs of the people in the ACT might be better served.
It is all right to go on about honour and mandates and all those sorts of things on the question of how the Commonwealth will deal with this matter. The Labor Party of course supports this motion in principle, but it is more or less pretty much a political stunt which is rather futile. After all, Mr Moore and everybody else in this place knows that negotiations are well down the track in the Federal Parliament and the likelihood of a referendum flowing from this motion is at best slim.
I do not agree with stunts being pulled and argued which might affect or slow down the good efforts of those who are trying to reach a solution to a longstanding impasse in the Federal houses of Parliament. Bang our jaws together as much as we like, the fact of the matter is that those negotiations are going to proceed and there will be an outcome. I know that that outcome will be something that we will live with until other changes are implemented, again by the Federal houses of Parliament.
I do not want to go on too much further about it, Mr Speaker, other than to say, in conclusion, that the Australian Labor Party has supported a referendum and will continue to do so, but I think we have to bear in mind what is being done at the Federal level. We have to bear in mind also that this motion will make little difference to the outcome. In the context of the negotiations which are going on at the Federal level, it will be somewhat meaningless.
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