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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 14 Hansard (11 December) . . Page.. 4905 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

Professor Pettit makes that comment in his letter. He also comments in his letter that Mr Berry indicated that members of the Assembly were not asked for input into the terms of reference or the make-up of the review. I have to say that that is not the case. I would like also to table a copy of the letter that I circulated to all members of the Assembly. This is the one to Mr Berry.

Mr Berry: What date?

MRS CARNELL: It is dated 13 October. I also circulated letters to other members of the Assembly with regard to the proposed terms of reference and did get back input that in many cases was included. I think Ms Tucker and the Greens indicated that they wanted to make sure that Hare-Clark was not part of the approach. I included that. Others put forward ideas on how we could improve the terms of reference. Many of them were included in the terms of reference. I understand that some crossbenchers have had some concerns. I am not for a moment suggesting that Mr Berry is the only person with concerns about the way the review was set up, but the crossbenchers were basically supportive of the approach that was taken.

Mr Speaker, as I am sure you will understand, I am deeply concerned about this. Not only does this put Professor Pettit in an extremely difficult position but I am also concerned that some members do not seem to have the decency to be open about the process which I believe has been put in place to establish this review. All members in this place were consulted about the terms of reference of the review. I wrote to all members on 13 October seeking comments on the terms of reference. I have the feedback that members gave.

I made the point that I was disappointed that I had to bring this motion forward but also quite excited. The reason that I am excited is that I believe that this term of the Assembly has shown a change in the way the Assembly operates, and I think a change for the better. Over the last six months or so the Government has become more experienced in the sorts of approaches that work in a minority government and the sorts of approaches that can improve community consultation, and I think we all have matured somewhat. It gives me a great feeling that there is a real opportunity now to take another small step forward, or maybe a big step forward, in governance in the ACT. I feel that the time is right to do that now that the Assembly is a little older and maybe a little wiser as well. I would like to see this inquiry look at the sorts of things that we might be able to do to make our Assembly more responsive to the people of the ACT, to make our Assembly more democratic and to make our Assembly more participatory. They are things that I know Mr Berry cannot understand that we actually believe, but we do.

Mr Humphries and I have argued long and hard, both at party level and in this place. I believe, and I know this side of the house believes, that the olden days of governments being elected every three or four years and the community being willing to allow them to get on with the job, or even the Executive to get on with the job, without community input have gone. I also believe that the days when members of this Assembly may have been willing to allow that to happen are gone too, and rightly so. We believe strongly that there needs to be a process in this Assembly that allows all 17 members to have more direct input than might have been the case in the past.

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