Page 2365 - Week 08 - Friday, 21 June 1991
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Now, I would like to discuss the matter of the cross benches. The reason some of us are where we are is that we do not wish to be part of either the Labor Party Government or the Liberal Party. That is why we are here. There is a Labor Party Government and there are 12 members of an opposition. If you think I am just starting on this one, may I refer you to a debate on 23 May 1989. It appears in Hansard under the heading "Leader of the Opposition: Election. Discussion of matter of public importance", at pages 34 to 53. That was a very interesting debate. There were some excellent speeches. I noticed excellent speeches by Mr Whalan, Ms Follett and others. I spent a long time, dare I say, in saying the following things and I would like to repeat them:
What we are discussing here is a matter of historical importance. What is important is the proper historical nature of this Assembly.
... I would like to make a distinction between what is marginally possible by a narrow and partisan interpretation of the law - I think, wrongly - and what is historically proper.
What I wanted to get at is that of course there is a Westminster system, and it takes many forms, in Canada, Fiji, Tonga, Norfolk Island and here in the ACT. We have a very, very strange form of the Westminster system, and I think a very improper one. But what is improper when it is a precedent? It is a tricky question. The strange precedent we have here is that when we are meeting in a body of 17 people there is a time when we suspend the usual forms of the Westminster system and five people do not take part. The other 12, while still sitting here, elect a so-called Leader of the Opposition. I declared that to be improper two years ago. It is still improper. It is a most unfortunate precedent.
We had this extraordinarily undemocratic manoeuvre to change the standing orders on 11 May 1989. It is no better now than it was then, and it was done under most peculiar circumstances. The Chief Minister at that time, in a very good speech which I have just reread, made the point that this was a precedent; indeed, it was.
But might I put forward another precedent. The precedent I suggested then, and I suggest now, is this: In the matter of an opposition it is better to go to other parts of the Westminster system to see what the precedents are there. You do not elect a leader of an opposition on the floor of the house in the presence of the government. That is the precedent I would wish to put forward. I make the suggestion here that what we should have done would have been a better precedent. I said then:
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