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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 8 Hansard (27 August) . . Page.. 2498 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

If Mr Berry cannot talk to his colleagues - and, let us be frank, who can blame them if they do not talk to each other, after the blood that has been on the floor up there in the last seven days? - then it is hardly my fault. The fact of the matter is that the agreement reached with the Australian Labor Party at that time, and with Mr Moore in discussions with him, was that the two issues should be separated; that it was not appropriate to bring forward the question of four-year terms.

Mr Berry: This is preparation for a four-year term.

MR HUMPHRIES: The amendments which I have put forward today make it clear that the Assembly will not at this stage entertain the concept of four-year terms.

Mr Berry: You will not get our support. If you ram this through today, you will get no support for it. This is another experiment.

MR HUMPHRIES: It is quite extraordinary, Mr Speaker. I appreciate that the Australian Labor Party is going through a difficult stage at the moment. I do not wish to exacerbate their problems. I think it was Benjamin Disraeli who said that you do not get a good government without a good opposition. At the moment, I have to say that that calls into question how good the Government might be. The fact of the matter is that members opposite are experiencing some difficulties. Therefore, I will simply put to the Assembly what it is that I believe had agreement only a couple of weeks ago when this matter was discussed, and that is that the question of four-year terms and the question of October elections are two separate issues which should be separated. My party does not feel at this point in time that it can support four-year terms. We have previously said that the matter needs to be ventilated further in the community, and I think that is the view we would take today.

The issue was also discussed with Mr Moore, who was the protagonist of the Bill, and Mr Moore agrees that it is not appropriate to force the issue of four-year terms at this point in time. Therefore, what I will do today is move my amendment which separates the two issues. The amendments that I am putting forward effectively tidy up the amendment that Mr Moore has already put forward, which ensures that the next election after the 21 February 1998 election will be on the third Saturday in October 2001, unless by some chance there is a Federal election on that day, in which case the ACT election would be held on the first Saturday in December 2001. I think that is appropriate. It does mean that the term of the next Assembly will be extended from three to 31/2 years approximately, but in my view that is not an unreasonable extension. It puts the date for elections in the ACT on a much more satisfactory footing.

The fact is that February elections deprive many citizens of the ACT of active involvement, if not in the election itself, in the lead-up to the election, because they coincide with a period during which many Canberrans are away on their holidays. More importantly perhaps, they prevent governments from being able to bring down budgets before the beginning of the next financial year - that is, the financial year

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