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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 6 Hansard (11 May) . . Page.. 1592 ..
MS TUCKER (continuing):
Our committee system in particular facilitates this discourse, and I am a strong supporter of the committee work. It is very important that we do not allow the committee system to be devalued. I am always respectful of, and grateful for, the work the community puts into Assembly committee inquiries. Usually the submissions are of a high standard and very valuable for committee deliberations.
In this debate today I would like to acknowledge the role of our community in contributing towards good governance in the ACT. While there is obviously still cynicism about self-government and about politicians in general, there are a lot of people who are prepared to work in good faith with their elected representatives. I personally have found this invaluable, not only for assisting in committee work and for informing green policy but also personally, because many of these people are inspiring. They are often working not for themselves but for the broader common good.
I also have to comment on the electoral system, as other members have, because it is obviously important in facilitating representative democracy. The Greens did take a strong role in the Hare-Clark campaign. Proportional representation is important in ensuring that a greater range of views can be represented in policy-making. Election results in the ACT over the years indicate that the community does see value in minority governments and a place for new parties and Independents.
While the ACT Greens have been represented in the Assembly only since 1995, I would like to point out that the broader green movement has been involved in self-government right from the start. One of the groupings which contested the first ACT election was the Fair Elections Coalition, which had as its lead candidate Tony Fleming, a former director of the Conservation Council. He stood as an Independent but his policies and background were very much green.
Also in the coalition were three candidates from the Rainbow Alliance, a national organisation which was a forerunner to the Australian Greens formed a few years later. Some members of the Rainbow Alliance are still active in the ACT Greens, and many of the principles and policies originally developed by that group have evolved into current Greens' policies. The Fair Elections Coalition missed out on a quota by 117 votes. If they had received a quota, it was fairly certain that they would have won two seats on preferences due to the vagaries of the d'Hondt voting system. If the coalition had won those extra votes, then the make-up of the First Assembly would have been very different.
It is interesting to observe how the issues and proposals that were put forward by green candidates in 1989 have progressed since then. A big concern in 1989 was the future planning of this city because of the demise of the NCDC and the threat of new developments destroying the bush capital character of our city. Despite the huge amount of work that has gone into the development of the Territory Plan and the Land Act since then, these planning issues are still far from resolved and in some ways have become more pronounced as redevelopment of older parts of Canberra gathers momentum and the strong planning focus of the NCDC days has become more and more diminished.
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