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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 8 Hansard (26 August) . . Page.. 2412 ..

MS REILLY (continuing):

We saw a very recent indication of that in the euthanasia debate, and I think we will see other instances like that in the future. So Mr Stefaniak should check out constitutional law. If you look at Mr Smith's very timely letter, the third paragraph says:

That policy commits the Coalition Government to supporting the introduction of 999 year leases, but also recognises that this matter is ultimately a decision for the ACT Legislative Assembly to make.

You will notice in Mr Smith's letter that he talks about the Legislative Assembly. He does not talk about his Liberal mates in the ACT Government; he talks about the Legislative Assembly. As Mr Moore says, how important is this? If you look at the spring program for the Federal Parliament, which, as I have pointed out, has a relationship to us, you will see a Bill listed under "Environment, Sport and Territories". If you look at this document it just says "Australian Capital Territory (Planning and Land Management) (Amendment) Bill", and then the basis on which it will be set up. It will provide the Australian Capital Territory Government, not the Legislative Assembly - there is no reference to the Legislative Assembly - with the capacity to increase the term of the leases in the Australian Capital Territory from 99 years to 999 years.

We have here, yet again, an example of the Federal Liberals helping out the ACT Liberals and allowing the ACT Minister for Planning to set it up in such a way that he can do what he wants. It is very handy to have the Federal Parliament up there to introduce legislation in the spring sittings in 1997 to allow this Government to do what it wants to do. There is no reason to think that there is going to be discussion with the Assembly. This is to allow the Government - in this case the Planning Minister - to do what it wants to do. The Planning Minister is not controlling what is happening. If he claims that he has no relationship with what Mr Smith is planning to do in the Federal Parliament, we are then left with the question, "Does not the Planning Minister in the ACT have any control over what he is doing? Does he not know what he is doing?". We are wondering what his role is.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (4.07): Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, I have listened to this debate with interest and care, and I have to agree with the Chief Minister. Many motions of censure and no confidence have been moved in this house over the last three years. For members' interest, this is the thirty-third motion of censure or no confidence. Collectively, there have been 33 of these motions moved in this Assembly since self-government. This is the thirty-third of them and, I think, at least the ninth moved in this Third Assembly. For interest's sake, that is the fact. The fact of the matter is that of all those motions - and I think I was here for all of them - this has been the weakest, the most unconvincing and the most detractive from the power of the Assembly to deal with these issues in that way.

Let me say a few things about the debate. First of all, I have to say I am happy that it is only today that we have discovered what the nature of the motion against me as Minister is. It was two weeks ago that I wrote to Ms McRae - in fact, I made it clear some time before that even - indicating that I wanted some idea of what the motion against me was to be, what the nature of the case against me was. I understood clearly from a meeting I had only yesterday with Ms McRae - - -

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