Page 1359 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 12 May 1993
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PRECEDENCE TO PRIVATE MEMBERS BUSINESS
Motion (by Mr Stevenson) proposed:
That so much of the standing and temporary orders be suspended as would prevent order of the day No. 22, private members business, relating to the proposed Canberra City Council, being called on forthwith.
MR HUMPHRIES (3.12): Madam Speaker, certainly the Opposition has had no notice of this matter. Obviously we are very happy to talk about private members business as a general rule, but I think that on Mr Stevenson's part it is most unorthodox and certainly unfair to other members of the chamber. I do not know whether I should apply these comments to that side of the chamber as well, but certainly as far as this side of the chamber is concerned there has been no notice of this matter. If Mr Stevenson expects to get support for this kind of thing he should, in fairness, canvass it among his colleagues first. I would not be prepared to support that motion at this time.
MR STEVENSON (3.12), in reply: I take Mr Humphries's words and I apologise for not mentioning it. However, as it was extending private members business, I thought it would be fair enough today.
Question resolved in the affirmative, with the concurrence of an absolute majority.
CITY COUNCIL AND LORD MAYOR
Debate resumed.
MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (3.13): Madam Speaker, I will continue my remarks on this matter raised by Mr Stevenson by saying that I believe that his motion is fundamentally flawed both in its concept and in the very terms that it uses. If we look, first of all, at the terms that the motion uses, the key part of it is "to replace our current state-like form of government with a City Council and Lord Mayor". Those very words reveal, I believe, an overly simplistic, very imprecise, ambiguous and very generalised proposition from Mr Stevenson - a proposition which, as I said before, he did not even bother arguing for. Whether the words "a city council and lord mayor" are in the mouth of Mr Stevenson or, in fact, Mrs Carnell, I believe that it is their duty to spell out what it is that they mean. What does Mr Stevenson, for instance, mean by a city council or a lord mayor? He did not even mention the lord mayor.
It is quite fortuitous, Madam Speaker, that today the Bulletin magazine has a quite extensive coverage of city councils and lord mayors in Australia. It is headed, on the cover, "Pomp and Ermine. Big salaries, lots of ceremony. But what do we get from our lord mayors?". It is a good question and it is one that Mr Stevenson did not even hazard an answer to. If you look through the article very quickly, Madam Speaker, you will see that what the various cities get from their lord mayors varies enormously, and what those lord mayors get from their cities also varies enormously. The most notable, I think, is the Lord Mayor of Brisbane, who took a pay cut of $60,000 to reduce his salary to $125,000 a year.
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