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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 11 Hansard (4 November) . . Page.. 3566 ..

MR OSBORNE (continuing):

The laws COAG proposes are often broad in their sweep and have far-reaching and different consequences in different jurisdictions. Often the decisions are tied to funding, as is the case with the national competition policy legislation. Predictably, anyone who dares to raise concerns about them is shouted down as a wrecker who is hell-bent on jeopardising funding for his or her State or Territory. So, there is no real opportunity for genuine scrutiny of this process.

That raises a related issue for me: What price do we put on the democratic process? In this case, it seems that our right to a say on this matter has been bartered away for $184m over seven years. I would have thought democracy was worth a little more than that, but perhaps that is just another reason why I will never become Treasurer. The competition policy Bills will radically change the way in which we get our gas, electricity and water. These things are vital day-to-day needs of every member of the community; yet there has been very little community-based discussion about the consequences. It is time to have the discussion, even if in the end there is nothing we can do but give our grudging assent to these Bills.

In most Australian parliaments there is little trouble passing the Bills because the Executive is in control of the lower house. In those parliaments the members pass the Bills, as they do with all government-initiated legislation, because their parties make them. Thankfully, this is not the case here; so we have the privilege of participating in a very rare debate. I do not hold out any hope that this discussion today will bounce out of this place into the national media spotlight, but it should. The gutting of parliaments should concern everyone who genuinely cares about our political system.

My own appreciation of what is happening at COAG, and my growing concern about it, has come slowly. It has been only in recent briefings between departmental officers and my staff that it has grown from a niggling doubt to genuine alarm. I should say at the outset, though, that I am grateful for the briefings and none of what I am about to say should be taken as a reflection on the work of the ACT bureaucrats who are involved in working on the policies in our jurisdiction. They are doing their jobs and, as far as I can see, doing them well. My concern is about the directions given by their political masters. And, in criticising the politicians driving the COAG process, I am well aware that, at least on the national stage, the Labor and Liberal parties have basically agreed on the process. I do not hold any one Territory government to account on this matter, but I strongly believe that there should be some accountability in the process.

I am not going to address each Bill in the package that will be presented to us this week, but will use the Water Resources Bill as an example of them all. I note that the 1994 report of the working group on water resource policy says that in introducing a strategic framework for the water industry eight principles should be followed. Dead last in that list of principles is that the community be involved in the water reform process. It is clearly an afterthought, but it is there.

I defy any government, anywhere in Australia, to show how this principle has been adhered to when not even the parliaments have been properly consulted about how the process should proceed. All of the competition policy reforms have been worked out in the bowels of COAG and then dumped on parliaments and the public alike. A cynic could

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