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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 1 Hansard (29 April) . . Page.. 194 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

people after hours. I would like to be able to say to my partner, "I will be home at 5 o'clock every evening and the constituency had better understand that you come first above all things. You do not have to make a contribution to my participation in politics in the ACT".

The fact of the matter is that families do make a contribution and when you put yourself up for election in this place you do so on that understanding. If you do not do it on that understanding you are deluding yourself because you cannot possibly make an effective contribution to this place without it having an impact on your family. Forget it. Give up now if you think you can do it without it affecting your family. I do not accept that you can say that there are responsibilities outside this place which prevent you from providing some access to the community. The community pays about $6m for this place. Recently they have heard a lot about the extra trappings, the extra allowances and funds that will be going into this place as we respond to the needs and desires of some of the members in here.

It would be easy for members to say, "We will give a little bit back". The cry would be, "It cost $20,000 a year or $30,000 a year" depending on whose assessment of events you accept. On my assessment, that is about the same amount of extra salary which was handed out to some crossbenchers. That is not a lot of money in the scheme of things. So, do you not think it is worth paying a little more to allow people to come here and see debates about important issues?

Mrs Carnell says they never came. Well, I am sorry; you are dead wrong. You are mistaken. If you persist with that you are deluding yourself and you are misleading the community. They did come to this place, and in respectable numbers, and on average those respectable numbers exceeded - save for schoolchildren who came here during the day from schools - what you would see on a normal day in this place, taking out the public servants and advisers. So for Mrs Carnell to sit there and say, "They do not come" - - -

Ms Carnell: They don't.

MR BERRY: You have a short memory and you do not wish to have a look at the facts as they stand. Yes, it will be an impost on people to provide this extra service to the community. It will be an impost and it will be harder work. There is no question about that. I do not recall it being particularly easy. But I go back to one of my earlier points. If you say it is not worth doing because it is too expensive - $30,000, say - and nobody comes, and you apply the same rule to $6m and the numbers we see in this place each day, we could all pack up now, go home and forget it.

I went through some of the earlier debates on this and I found that Mr Humphries has said that council-style government is not about letting the constituents see you work; it is about providing access to them in other ways. Access to a parliament also means coming in the front door and seeing your parliamentarians work, Mr Humphries.

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