Page 1377 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 12 May 1993
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Simply put, Mrs Carnell, it is not good enough to stand up and say, "Yes, I believe that a shire council or a town council is the way to proceed". It is quite obvious that you have no understanding of what effect those words would have on the political processes in the city, the political processes in this chamber and the standard of debate, if true parliamentary reform is what you are about. I doubt that it is, because your own party has recently deposed the only member on your side of the house who has stood up in this chamber and talked with any intelligence and sincerity about parliamentary reform in the ACT. You thought so much of his policy on parliamentary reform that you dumped him two weeks ago. Now you are dragged into a debate that you should have had more political sense than to get involved in on a program that has nothing more to do than try to increase the ratings for Matt. Good on him; he was smarter than you, Mrs Carnell.
Mr De Domenico: You appear on it every couple of weeks, Mr Lamont.
MR LAMONT: Yes, and, as you know, he was smarter than you, Mr De Domenico. What has happened, Mrs Carnell, is that you have been sucked in. You have used very emotive words, if there is a genuine desire to see parliamentary reform on the agenda. In all of the comments that have been made this afternoon by you and your colleagues, you have been backing away at a hundred thousand miles an hour from what you and your colleague Mr Kaine publicly acknowledged were your two different positions.
It is very simple to judge that. As we are quoting what has been said on that great radio station, the ABC, the compere said:
Were you surprised to see Ms Carnell talking about it in the way she did?
Trevor Kaine replied:
Quite frankly, yes, I was, because I almost felt that she'd been to a different summit than I'd been to.
That is what he had said.
Mr De Domenico: No, he just left early.
MR LAMONT: He left early? I am surprised that he was invited.
Mr Moore: He has left early tonight too.
MR LAMONT: As he has left early tonight. Mr Kaine went on to say:
... in broad terms ... I think it's too late to turn the clock back and try and massively change the structure that's been created over a period of about five years.
The arguments to be put for retention of self-government, in the format of the current federal legislative structure, have been put no more eloquently this afternoon than by the former Leader of the Opposition.
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