Page 2268 - Week 08 - Friday, 21 June 1991
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not even provide for parties. Yet, that is the system; that is the convention; that is the convention within the Australian parliamentary system; and this Assembly is, rightly or wrongly, Dennis, no different. Accordingly, the leader of the majority party in opposition - and that is the Liberal Party, with five members - should, by convention, and indeed, because of that, by right, be the Leader of the Opposition.
Mr Collaery: But we formed a group. We are the majority.
MR STEFANIAK: I do not know whether Mr Collaery really knows whether he is coming or going. Is he in opposition? He stated, I think, ad infinitum, on various occasions, that he is sitting on the cross benches. Is that opposition? No; I think the convention has clearly been breached here, Mr Speaker. We have seen yet another regrettable farce along the road to the ACT becoming a truly self-governing community, and I really think something should be done to rectify this rather sad situation.
MR JENSEN: Mr Speaker, I seek leave to move a motion to formally abolish the position of Leader of the Opposition from the standing and temporary orders.
Leave not granted.
MR JENSEN: In that case, Mr Speaker, I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave granted.
MR JENSEN: Mr Speaker, it is unfortunate that the two groups, the Labor Party and the Liberal Party, have not seen fit to remove from the standing orders a position that was put into the standing orders, even despite the fact that the majority of the Assembly at the time was not a government majority.
There was, in fact, a minority government established, and the position of Leader of the Opposition was, as my colleague Mr Collaery said, not put into the self-government Act; nor was it put into the standing orders. It was added at the insistence, and with the numbers, of the two major parties - the Liberal and Labor parties.
That shows that both major parties are not prepared to accept the fact that this is an Assembly that does not have two major groupings. It is made up of at least three or four groupings. I think it is about time, Mr Speaker, that the members of the duopoly - for that is what they are - woke up to the fact that the Independents around this country are gaining further and further credence, because effectively - - -
Mrs Nolan: They lost ground in New South Wales.
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