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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 8 Hansard (27 August) . . Page.. 2553 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

Mr Osborne and Mr Moore have, on many occasions, expressed similar sentiments. Of course, democratic parliaments are about debating issues, and I have no problem with vigorous debate in this place. I do see the value of it as long as it is informed, thoughtful and not just political intrigue and manoeuvring.

The Government addressed some of these issues in its report Governing Canberra; but, as members know, there was considerable criticism of this document and a lack of support of the model that it proposed, mainly because it seemed to be increasing Executive power, not decreasing it. We also had the Prasad report which was quite interesting. It was not actually presented in the context of changing the Legislative Assembly or the processes within it. It was presented as a review of staffing allocations. But it did have in it a political analysis by this man who was contradicting himself within the report and making judgments that we need to discuss as a group. He has the right to make those judgments and to have those views, but that is not the place of a consultant. The place for this debate is amongst all members here to work out, if we, indeed, all do want more participatory and participative processes in the Assembly. Certainly, Mrs Carnell has said she does, Mr Moore has, and Mr Osborne has. We welcome the opportunity to advance that debate. This motion is about that debate as well.

The Greens believe it is now time to take action on all the words that have been said about reforming the Assembly. This Assembly now needs to create the processes and to cease protecting the entrenched political power that the old parties are so keen to hang on to. The abolition of the position of Leader of the Opposition is a relatively simple act. Other reforms to the Assembly are harder to incorporate into the standing orders or require direct action by the Government - for example, reform of the budget development process and improved consultation processes. There also needs to be more discussion of how the Assembly committees could be better integrated into government decision-making processes.

The Greens believe that over the next few months, before the election and a new Assembly, serious work needs to be done on making the Assembly more open, innovative and responsible. Good government should be about improving the accountability of government, finding a less adversarial way of resolving important issues, and opening up decision-making processes to the wider community. We do look forward to Assembly support for the start of this process.

I heard Mr Berry interject. If he is going to try to argue that this is just about salaries and wages for the Greens, there would be very little difference between what we were receiving a month ago and what would come out of a redistribution.

Mr Moore: That would be reasonable.

MS TUCKER: Mr Moore actually has come up with a very sensible proposal about a more equitable arrangement that would benefit everyone, if we are interested in acknowledging the realities of how this parliament works and move out of this very blinkered view that we still have some kind of two-party system. It has never been the case in this place.

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