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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 14 Hansard (11 December) . . Page.. 4909 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

from a particular activity. If you were fair dinkum, you would have come to people and talked to them before any decisions were made. No, you agreed with the Minister before you spoke to anybody; so do not give me any of this rot about consultation. You did not consult. You have placed Professor Pettit in an embarrassing situation as a result. I am telling you that we do not support the review at this stage and will not be voting for it. I am not giving any guarantees about a review throughout an election period. I am not giving any guarantees about a review that does not take into account the electoral system. It is impossible for a review - - -

Mr Moore: Because Labor hates the electoral system. It has always hated it.

MR BERRY: No. The problem in the ACT is the Government - the Kate Carnell, Michael Moore, Paul Osborne, Greens Government. That is the problem. They are the Government. They are the ones who hold it together. They are the ones who jointly take responsibility for all the things that have gone wrong - the hospital implosion, the futsal stadium. They all share in those sorts of little problems. The Government is the problem. Mrs Carnell wants to shift the responsibility for all these dud decisions onto some review of ACT government.

I have said all I need to say in relation to the review. I am sorry that Professor Pettit has been caught up in this mess. I know that he would deal with it in good faith. We will not be supporting a review which does not include the electoral system. That is not to say that the electoral system would or would not survive such a review or would or would not get the endorsement of such a review. You cannot consider governance in the ACT without looking at the electoral system. Let us just have a look at one aspect - - -

Mrs Carnell: You just cannot handle minority governments, and they are actually quite workable.

MR BERRY: Of course they are, especially if Labor have their hands on the levers. What has happened here is that the Independents and Greens have allowed you to impact your conservative agenda on the ACT electorate and impact your media-driven stunts on the electorate of the ACT. That is the problem. Your leadership is the problem, Mrs Carnell. We would have stopped and waited for the breathalyser. Mr Speaker, this is just another Carnell stunt and I will - - -

Mr Stefaniak: You are at a loss for words now.

MR BERRY: No, I am just reading my amendment that I am going to circulate. It recommends that the new Assembly investigate a joint Commonwealth-ACT review of the governance of the Australian Capital Territory. I would expect that, following on from that, the next Assembly would set terms of reference which were quite appropriate for such a review.

Ms McRae: Together.

MR BERRY: Together. That is most important. Together we would set them. Let us have a look at how the electoral system affects the ACT. There has been much criticism of the adversarial nature of the parliament.

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