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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 2 Hansard (11 March) . . Page.. 619 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

The Executive here, of course, is a mirror image of that. It continues:

. establishing departments of State and appointing (or dismissing) officers to administer departments of State (these officers are Members of the Federal Executive Council and known as Ministers of State) ...

. directing, in the absence of parliamentary provision, what offices shall be held by Ministers of State ...

. appointing and removing other officers of the Executive Government ...

And on it goes. Thankfully, this Chief Minister does not have the role of acting as commander in chief of the naval and military forces. That would involve the handing over of far too much power to this slaphappy, can-do Minister. We have had enough explosions and accidents in this Territory to assure us that that would be a very risky move.

Let us see what the Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Act has to say about the Executive in Part IV. At section 37, under the heading "General powers of Executive", it says:

The Executive has the responsibility of:

(a) governing the Territory with respect to matters specified in Schedule 4 ...

Tempting though it is, I will not read out all of those responsibilities, but there are dozens of them, ranging from Territory insurance, sales and leases of goods, registration of instruments, education, and so on. That is the role of the Executive. Section 37 continues:

(b) executing and maintaining enactments and subordinate laws; and

(c) exercising such other powers as are vested in the Executive by or under a law in force in the Territory or an agreement or arrangement between the Territory and the Commonwealth, a State or another Territory; and

(d) exercising prerogatives of the Crown so far as they relate to the Executive's responsibility mentioned in paragraph (a), (b) and (c).

Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, what this Chief Minister wants us to do is make sure that she is able to maintain these powers and the perks that go with it, but give the responsibility to us for providing her with the money to carry out her functions. She wants us to do that without the resources which these Ministers have to back them in the

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