Page 2259 - Week 08 - Friday, 21 June 1991
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Assembly at the next election, should now stand here as the Opposition Leader, the head of the alternative government, the man who would be the next Chief Minister of the Territory.
Mr Speaker, I am appalled. I hope that this decision is reversed. It is regrettable, and it is a sad day for this Assembly.
MR COLLAERY: Mr Speaker, I seek leave to make a statement.
Leave granted.
MR COLLAERY: Mr Speaker, Mr Humphries neglected to read a little earlier at page 119 of House of Representatives Practice, where it says:
The House took no official cognisance in its records of the appointment of a Leader of the Opposition prior to 1920 ... In 1920 the office was ... recognised for the purposes of the payment of an allowance. Since then the status of the office has continued to rise -
as has, in diametric proportion, the opinion of the public of parliament.
Mr Speaker, the Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Act made no provision for a Leader of the Opposition. That Act was drafted after years of arduous parliamentary research, both in Australia and abroad, and legal parliamentary advising. It is incomprehensible to suggest that the office of Leader of the Opposition was overlooked in the drafting of the Act. It was clearly anticipated that in a small unicameral legislature like ours there would be a high proportion of Independents, as indeed the vote eventually showed.
In that circumstance, Mr Speaker, it is the height of arrogance for Mr Humphries to suggest that he has a born right to the choice today simply because he has a higher number of majority votes out there in the population for his party. Mr Speaker, does that always mean that a group of Independents cannot get together, as they have today, and seek to have these reforms instituted?
Mr Wood: You could not do it in government; why could you do it now?
MR COLLAERY: Mr Speaker, we will move a motion to nullify standing orders 5A and 5B, which were drafted in the first hours of this Assembly, at Mr Whalan's instructions, and which created this position which has caused such discord in this small Assembly. It is unnecessary, Mr Speaker, for this Assembly to talk about the alternative Prime Minister. The magisterial tone of Mr Humphries' comments does not reflect the far less colourful and less pomp and splendour of this house. This is a house of the people of the ACT,
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