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Mr Speaker, that leads me to the issue of the environment. I have to be careful not to anticipate anything on the notice paper. One of the great challenges of environmental protection at the moment is to ensure that we do not get an increase in noise pollution. The matter that is on the notice paper has to do with the number of exemptions. No doubt that will be debated later this week. Mr Speaker, there is a whole range of challenges in terms of environmental protection which I hope to draw to the Minister's attention personally and also to work on in the Planning and Environment Committee. We have agreed to start with the issue of contaminated sites. We are looking particularly at the sheep dip sites around Canberra. I am sure that the committee's inquiry will also look at the general issue of contamination. Just last week we were fortunate enough to hear from one of the world’s leading academics, a professor from the University of Toronto, on some of the issues associated with contaminated sites and contaminants moving through underground water.

There are two final points that I would like to make, Mr Speaker. The first one is about city-style government. City-style government, or council-style government, I think, has just about run its course. We hear debates about just what is council-style government. I said this in the last Assembly, and I will say it again: I do not mind whether I am a member of a Legislative Assembly, an MLA, or a member of a Legislative Council, an MLC; but I can understand why some members would want to be MLCs, because throughout Australia MLCs always get “Honourable” written before their names. So, if we do go to a council, I suppose that there are what some people would perceive as advantages in that. Mr Speaker, you would then be known as the Honourable Mr Speaker, and we would have the Honourable Mr Connolly, the Honourable Mr Stefaniak and so on. That might just have the opposite effect to that which some people intended when they started this.

Similarly, Mr Speaker, I think the whole debate about consultation is getting quite out of hand. It is time that we actually rethought what is meant by consultation. Does it mean that, before the Chief Minister wipes her nose, she has to go and check with somebody? Does it mean that there is going to be no such thing as a decisive action? Does it mean that there is going to be an appropriate amount of consultation and then a decision taken, even though it is not going to suit some people? This is an issue that always has some difficulties.

Finally, Mr Speaker, the Chief Minister tabled her copy of the legislation program for this sitting. She went on to say:

I do want to point out that this Government intends to be remembered not for the amount of legislation that is introduced but for the sheer volume of obsolete laws we remove.

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