Page 2303 - Week 08 - Friday, 21 June 1991
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MR KAINE (4.57): Mr Deputy Speaker, I will not speak at great length on this subject, but I think it is a subject that this Assembly should be seriously considering. I have only one objection to the topic put forward by Mr Stevenson. I noticed that his matter of public importance was "the need for reform of the parliamentary process". In fact, he himself spent a great deal of time talking about the parliamentary system rather than the process. I think that, when you talk to people out there in the community, you find that there is still - and perhaps it is a legacy of the no self-government feeling that existed two-and-a-half or three years ago - a feeling that the Assembly was not - - -
Mr Stevenson: Should be abolished.
MR KAINE: No, there is no such feeling at all, Mr Stevenson; quite the contrary. There is a feeling that it is not in the form that they would like it to be in; that it does not quite work in the way they would like it to work. So, there is a need, I think, for this body to examine closely not only the way the process flows but also the nature of the system itself; the fundamental system that was created by the Commonwealth and established under the self-government Act and the various consequential Acts that supported it.
I very much suspect that people have in their minds this notion of a city council type of government, because they perceive that that is a form of government that they are comfortable with. But when you ask them, "If you had a city council type of government, how would you manage a half a billion dollar budget in health and education, which are not municipal-type functions; how would you manage a police force, for $60m a year, which is not a municipal function; how would you manage the court systems, which are not municipal functions?", they get confused because - - -
Mr Stevenson: Separate them and hand them back to the Federal Government.
MR KAINE: You have your own ideas, but people out there have different views. They have a concept of a different form of government - - -
Mr Stevenson: It is called a municipal council.
MR KAINE: You talk about municipal government. We have a budget this year just ending of $1.4 billion. Only about $120m of that is municipal expenditure. There is $1.3 billion that is not municipal money. Do not talk to me, Mr Stevenson, about municipal government. Do you want to go back to a municipal government with a $130m a year budget and let New South Wales manage your health and education systems? You can imagine what they would look like in the ACT if that happened. You would be treated just as if you
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