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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 11 Hansard (26 September) . . Page.. 3449 ..

MR HIRD (continuing):

The suggestion that the only course of action available to respond to a statement to this place is to refer the matter to a committee is simply a bureaucratic procedure. The Speaker is not left in a vulnerable position if standing orders are breached, no more so than when members disobey the Speaker's directions during question time. If an offence occurs the offender, at the direction of the Speaker, is removed by the Serjeant-at-Arms. The majority of the committee is concerned by the possible "granting of privilege to those who may not have an awareness of the responsibilities that freedom of speech brings with it". That is like saying that we, as the elected members of the Assembly, are the custodians of standing orders which no-one else will understand. Mr Speaker, the option of the people of Canberra addressing their elected members is not without precedent. It happens in other places. An example of where it happens is the Greater City of Brisbane. The Brisbane City Council administers a bigger area and population than we have. I find it very interesting that the Brisbane City Council currently has a Labor lord mayor. We, after all, are paid by the community. We are elected by and are accountable to the community. Why is it, Mr Speaker, that we do not want to give them the opportunity of bringing their grievances into their place?

MR MOORE (12.10): Mr Speaker, I think the majority report is the appropriate and sensible way to go. I recall that you, Mr Speaker, dissented from the majority report, which I guess is reflected in the minutes. Mr Hird says in his dissenting report that we are preventing the community from coming in and addressing the parliament. The proposal that was before us, of course, would have allowed, maybe at the most, three or four members of the community a year to come and address this parliament. As Ms Tucker rightly pointed out, the issue here was to ensure for the rest of us that the committee process is not undermined. We could perceive what would happen. People would say, "Largely, I would prefer to go and address the Assembly as a whole, not address the committees". There is access through the committee process to this Assembly. It is very wide. There have been times, Mr Speaker, when people have asked to appear before committees at very short notice. In fact, I can give an example. In a recent hearing of the Planning and Environment Committee on Nudurr Drive, a person who was sitting there watching the proceedings indicated that he would like to speak, and the committee allowed him to address it without notice. So the committees have a very broad perspective in allowing people to address them. The chance of any more than two or three people addressing the Assembly would be remote.

Whilst I understand the dissenting report of Mr Hird, and I think it has been quite thorough, it is driven by party policy. It is driven by somebody who went to the last election and said, "We are going to have more council-style government". Perhaps that leads us to the example that Mr Hird gave us; that the Brisbane City Council apparently does allow this. Of course, the Brisbane City Council does not have the same committee process as we have, and such a broad committee process at that. That is the first point. Secondly, Mr Hird said "places", and gave one example. He gave no example of a parliament anywhere within the Commonwealth. I believe that you will not find those examples. That in itself, of course, is not a reason for us not to do something. If we have an innovative idea that is worth while doing, it is appropriate that we pursue it; but in this case the majority of members of this committee believed, on a cost-benefit analysis, that the costs to the community were far greater than the benefits. That is why it is that we have felt it appropriate to reject this.

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