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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 8 Hansard (27 June) . . Page.. 2235 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

Mr Speaker, I take a great deal of pleasure in introducing this Bill today, even though it is not for the first time. I take the view that this election commitment is one of the most significant we made to the people of Canberra. This Bill is one upon which all sides of politics will be judged simply by their commitment to giving Canberrans a real say in the way in which they are governed. It is one upon which this Government is happy to be judged in support of that principle.

Mr Speaker, the form of representative government Australia inherited from the nineteenth century has to move with the times. With huge leaps forward in education and information technology, modern Australians no longer need elected representatives to make all their decisions for them. We all know that there are big issues routinely avoided by elected politicians because they are too hard. It is time to give ordinary voters the power to take the initiative and take the tough decisions. Mr Speaker, there are many ways in which this power could be used productively to enhance the nature of democracy in the ACT, and I ask members to reflect on their own commitments given to the people of the ACT on this issue.

Mr Speaker, before the last election people, including the Greens and Mr Moore and his party, gave undertakings that they would seriously consider the issue of community-initiated referenda. It behoves them to treat this Bill, therefore, with a little more care and caution than perhaps other Bills have been treated in the past. Mr Speaker, I make no bones about the fact that this would be a hard rod for the backs of some politicians and sometimes even this Government. We are prepared to live with that.

Mr Moore: Show us your good faith by responding to that petition.

MR HUMPHRIES: If members of the community, for example, initiated a referendum on shopping hours in this Territory, I for one would welcome the involvement of other people and I would live by the result, but petitions by themselves do not constitute the full picture. What does constitute the full picture is the vote of people at referenda. I remind members that something like 31,000 people signed a petition last year calling for measures to save local Canberra shops. There clearly are lots of strong views out there in the community about these issues. I think the only way of measuring these issues in the absence of community-initiated referenda is by the feel that politicians have for these sorts of issues. We need a better way of deciding on issues of importance to the community. I commend this Bill to the Assembly.

Ms Follett: Mr Speaker, I would like to take a point of order now that Mr Humphries has concluded his remarks. Throughout those remarks, Mr Humphries made statements which implied very strongly that members who voted against his Bill on the last occasion when he introduced it had done so without sufficient care and sufficient thought. He said that repeatedly. Mr Speaker, you have ruled that that was not a reflection on the vote. I do not agree with that ruling. I believe that it contains a reflection on the other members of this Assembly, and I would ask that Mr Humphries be requested to withdraw any such reflection.

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