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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 9 Hansard (28 August) . . Page.. 2734 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

Mr Speaker, the Greens hope that this motion has the support of all members. In a minority government situation I think the amendment to the standing orders we are proposing makes very good sense. At the moment only two hours is allocated to private members business and often this leaves time for debate on only one significant issue, particularly if everyone in this place wants to have a say. We do not have any rules about repetition, so we have to accept that every member has the right to speak - sometimes twice. Everyone in this place will relate to the frustration of having something ready to go and then we run out of time.

From a quick look at today's notice paper it is clear that the majority of business is being generated by the non-Executive members, and that is hardly surprising. There are 42 items on the notice paper under private members business, compared with 21 items under Executive business and 18 under Assembly business. I acknowledge that there are some motions there that are purely political, but I think a lot of the business is very constructive. Extending the time allocated to private members business will enable further constructive debate on a very wide range of issues, and it will help us get through some of the motions and legislation that are building up on the notice paper. Of course, members will need to take responsibility to not just turn private members business into an extended political grandstanding time and to ensure that we do not spend all day going round and round on one issue.

I think the ACT should be proud that we do have a progressive form of government with the Hare-Clark system, which is far more democratic than virtually any other system in place. Some members of this place and also the community have commented on the absurdity of only four members forming the Executive, and we are, of course, all aware of the debates around so-called council-style government. We do still operate in a Westminster system and there is obviously a lot of debate ahead of us before any change is to take its place; but within that system there is flexibility. We do have a diverse range of opinions in this Assembly, and that is because the people of Canberra voted for this diversity and for a minority government. The Assembly should respect this. I urge members to support this motion.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General) (4.58): Mr Speaker, I am not exactly sure what members feel about this motion, but I indicate that the Government does not favour it. To be quite blunt about it, I suppose that we would have to characterise the limitation in standing order 77 on the time for the transaction of private members business as a device to ensure that the focus of the Assembly is on the production of government business. Perhaps no-one who was responsible for drafting the standing orders would admit to that, but there are a number of provisions in these standing orders which could only be characterised as designed to assist the operation of governments. Standing orders 200 and 201, for example, are perhaps the most notorious of those, in that they deal with the limitations on non-Executive members dealing with money proposals and so on. There are a number of other provisions throughout these standing orders which essentially are designed to facilitate the work of an Executive.

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