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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (2 December) . . Page.. 4285 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

In this regard, my department is currently drawing together the outcomes of this conference and the pre-conference workshops, the earlier work done on the 2020 report and Canberra: A Capital Future, and suggestions already made by this Assembly, to develop a revised strategic plan. The Government will continue to progress this work into the new year and beyond, in consultation with the Assembly, the Commonwealth and the community. Mr Speaker, I think it is important to realise that this sort of process does not have, I suppose, a definite beginning and a definite end. It is an ongoing process. But I think community participation in government will always be that way, and it is something that I believe is a step in the right direction.

MR BERRY (Leader of the Opposition): Mr Speaker, I seek leave to comment on the paper.

Leave granted.

MR BERRY: This document, which is essentially a record of proceedings - a Hansard of proceedings, I suppose, would be the best way to describe it - is part of a campaign that really began before the last election, when the Chief Minister promised a council style of government, along with a range of other promises which, of course, were never to see the light of day. Mr Speaker, there was then the strategic plan, which was developed in the ACT by the Government and was widely criticised; there was the Governing Canberra report, again widely criticised; and then a process was set up, described as the National Capital Futures Conference.

On the face of it, it looked like a fairly positive thing; but, once you had a little bit of a look behind the scenes, it was very clear that it was not an entirely representative conference. It was a conference where community organisations and the community were far outweighed by other sectors of the ACT. But then the crunch came when it was decided somewhere along the line that the conference would make majority decisions. That is when any semblance of it having a positive nature went out the window. Fancy structuring a conference which was biased one way or another and then deciding that it was going to make majority decisions which governments might take into account when formulating decisions for the future governance of the ACT.

In the course of it, some quite loopy ideas emerged. One was the popular election of the Chief Minister in the ACT. That would be one of the most ridiculous things that I have ever seen emerge from any sort of conference in the ACT. I notice that it was sponsored mostly by the Minister responsible for electoral affairs, Mr Humphries. I am thankful that the conference communique does not show that this particular approach was endorsed, because it was dumb. It was an approach that would lead us nowhere, in the context of proportional representation in the ACT, and it was just nothing but trouble for the future of the Territory. That, I think, undermined the quality of the conference. It certainly did for me.

What troubled me most was that the conference was declared to be representative. Of course, the main aim was to engage as many people as possible, so that they could be declared to be owners of the outcome when it was declared. I do not mind being involved in things, provided that there is a fair process which results in decisions that can be

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