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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 12 Hansard (24 November) . . Page.. 3565 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

That is a very sensible statement. Ministers cannot be everywhere. It is absolutely impossible for any Minister to be aware of what is going on with all the employees of his department at any point in a day. That statement by Sir Billy Snedden is, I think, a very good summary of the convention and the extent of ministerial responsibility.

I listened with interest to Mr Stanhope's speech. He made a number of points by quoting Coroner Madden. For example, he said that if people had done their job properly, the contractors would never have been given the job. That may be so. It is an official's job to check these things. It is not the job of the Chief Minister or a Minister. Mr Stanhope said that WorkCover was an inefficiently run agency. The coroner made that finding. The Government has a duty to fix it up as a result of that. Again, the actions were of the officials, which is very different in terms of what ministerial responsibility means in relation to the proper conduct of no-confidence motions. A no-confidence motion can be merely a vehicle for debate. That is also something that Sir Billy Snedden recognised in his address. It is then simply a political matter whether people wish to support it; it is really a matter of numbers. But we are talking about ministerial responsibility.

We have a few precedents for no-confidence motions being successful in this place. Let us look at the successful no-confidence motions over the past 10 years. The first was on 5 December 1989 when Bernard Collaery moved:

That motion was moved as a consequence of a quite improper approach by the government of the day to the Speaker, who was an Independent, seeking to secure the Speaker's vote on a money Bill before the Assembly. That motion succeeded. On 6 June 1991 we had another motion of no confidence, being moved this time by Ms Follett. The key issues revolved around school closures and the retention of the Royal Canberra Hospital. It is, in fact, pertinent to digress to some comments made by Rosemary Follett at the time of the debate. I quote from page 2167 of Hansard of 6 June 1991:

What hypocrisy and hyperbole on the part of the Labor Party! Within months of resuming the ministerial benches, Mr Berry as Health Minister closed the old Royal Canberra Hospital. The decision taken by the Alliance Government effectively was endorsed by the new Follett Government and preparations were made to transfer operations to Woden Hospital. On 12 April 1994 we had the infamous VITAB debate in the Assembly, where Mr Berry was found by a majority of the Assembly to have misled the Assembly - to quote from the motion, "deliberate or reckless misleading of the Assembly".

In none of those three successful no-confidence motions has the Assembly adopted an interpretation of the principle of ministerial responsibility as espoused by Mr Stanhope, as I read into what he is saying. He still has not articulated exactly what is his

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