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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 1 Hansard (20 February) . . Page.. 275 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

Mr Speaker, I think it is a sad day when we are forced to do this to the Government, having heard the debate today and having listened to such an inadequate response from the Government. They failed to provide any proof of what they were saying about the real reason - this is how the Chief Minister started this whole debate - why Ms Rees had to go. It was because she was giving public servants such a hard time when they were completely defenceless. All the evidence here shows very clearly that the attacks on the public servants were in response to very public statements made by public servants. That is the first thing.

The second thing is the perceptions that came from the Stein inquiry. First of all, they came about before Ms Rees was appointed, and that really puts them in an entirely different light. Secondly, they were about public perceptions. So the Government has failed to sustain anything. For some reason, the Government has become particularly vindictive about this, and one cannot help wondering just what the raw nerve is.

MR KAINE (Minister for Urban Services) (5.35): Mr Speaker, I have not participated in this debate about the propriety or otherwise of the Government dispensing with the services of Jacqui Rees and I do not intend to do so now. In fact, I find the whole debate quite distasteful, and I am sure Ms Rees does too. I speak only to the amendment that Mr Moore has now put forward, and I want to sound a note of caution.

Government in the ACT is a quite precarious thing. Members of the Opposition are just as likely to be in government again in the future as we are in government today, and when this chamber goes beyond what is reasonable in directing the government I think we need to be a bit worried about the future of this institution. There are matters of core policy and matters of core concern to the community which are the prerogative of the legislature. There are other things that are administrative in nature. I think that when this place pretends to direct the Government, the Executive which it has created, in terms of how the Government administers this Territory, it is getting outside the bounds.

I think that the people in this place need to go and take a basic lesson in legislative practices in the British Commonwealth, because we pretend to have a system that is based on the Westminster system, and every day we abrogate that. I think this is a case in point. What the Government did in this matter, right or wrong, is a matter of administration. It is not a matter for the legislature. It is not a matter of core concern to the way this Government conducts its business. In my view, it is not a matter on which this place ought properly to direct the Government one way or the other.

I think the motion as originally phrased by Ms Tucker was correct. It is legitimate for a member of this place to call upon the Government to do something and attempt to persuade it to do what is being asked. It is a totally different thing for a member to require something, which in fact directs the Government to do something of an administrative nature. So, Mr Speaker, I oppose Mr Moore's amendment. I think any person in this place who has any regard whatsoever for the proper processes of a legislature such as this can do no more and no less than oppose it, as I do. I think that if this place votes otherwise it is a reflection on the sense of understanding that the members of this place have about what it is proper to direct the Government on and what it is not. I oppose the amendment totally.

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