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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 1 Hansard (21 February) . . Page.. 127 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

Research for the Leaders Forum - Australia's Premiers and Chief Ministers - last year identified high levels of alienation from governments generally, strong positive feelings towards increased decision-making at community level, and general low esteem for State level governments. That was not from us, of course. That was at a national level. The reform group has proposed a model of operation for the Assembly and the Executive that recognises that minority government is likely to be here for the foreseeable future and that any Executive has an enormous task, given its size. However, it will be a challenge for us to change our modus operandi. I am sure that some of us prefer the adversarial system we have now. Absolutely everything is negated. It is all care, no responsibility. When hard decisions have to be taken, more points can be scored with narrow interest groups when obstacles are put in the way of the Government's decision-making process.

What is the cost of this? The reform group has again pointed out to us the reality of our situation. The money tree has been cut down. We can look forward to less and less subsidy from the Commonwealth. After six years some argue that the transition is complete. Work done by the National Capital Planning Authority during the recent central national area study showed that Australians who live outside the ACT do not consider that they should have to spend any more on Canberra. They believe that Canberrans should be responsible for paying for Canberra's future needs. They also expect high standards to be maintained, as we all know.

Successive minority governments have been hamstrung in the adversarial atmosphere of this Assembly. I believe that everybody here in this Assembly would agree that the adversarial nature of government has not been necessarily a positive to this place.

Mr Berry: You are a master at it. How dare you say that!

Mr Moore: Start with the budget, Kate.

MRS CARNELL: If everyone in this Assembly were willing to look at this document and come up with real input into improving the way this Assembly works we would all benefit.

Ms McRae: Who does not want to answer questions?

MRS CARNELL: I am interested in the response around this Assembly already. It is a straight negative approach. We have put on the table an attempt to have a community consultation period about how, as an Assembly, we can become more focused on what the community wants and allow the community to have direct input into this place. All we are seeing, particularly from Mr Berry opposite, is a negative approach. Mr Speaker, that spells out why we desperately need to take this document on board and look at it.

Mr Moore has indicated that there are areas of it that he does not like. That is fine. Let us put forward proposals that Mr Moore does like. Let us put forward proposals that this Assembly can live with and that give the community direct input into this place. That is what the Government is about. That is the fundamental basis of Hare-Clark with Robson rotation - a system of government that is participatory, that allows the community

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