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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 12 Hansard (24 November) . . Page.. 3566 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

interpretation of ministerial responsibility, what is his test or what is his standing. In two instances, both involving the Labor Party, there was sufficient misconduct on the part of Ministers for a majority of the Assembly to accept those two no-confidence motions. In the other matter the Labor Party took advantage of the split in the Alliance Government over the closure of schools and succeeded in the no-confidence motion.

At no time in the past 10 years has a Minister had to resign because of the actions of departmental staff. It has been when Ministers have acted improperly or have misled the Assembly that Ministers have been forced to resign or governments have fallen. Mr Stanhope says that this Government disregards Westminster conventions and principles. I differ with him on that. I think we would be disregarding Westminster principles if we were to support his motion. I will say that again. Precedent is important, and at no time over the last 10 years has a Minister had to resign because of the actions of departmental staff. It has been when a Minister has acted improperly or has misled the Assembly. Those are the two classic situations where Ministers, governments, Chief Ministers, Premiers or Prime Ministers have been forced to resign - where they have acted improperly or they have misled the parliament, not because of the actions of departmental staff.

It is now the duty of this Government, as a result of the lengthy findings by Coroner Shane Madden, to fix up any systemic problems that occurred and led or contributed to the absolutely tragic death of this young girl. It is the duty of any government in any coronial inquest where government officials are involved to improve any systemic problems or individual problems in terms of staff in the operations of their department. That is what the Government has done over the last two years in terms of the death of the young man at Quamby and what, to date, it seems to have done quite effectively. That is what occurred in relation to the tragic death at the Belconnen Remand Centre. Okay, there was another one not long after that, but improvements were made as a result of recommendations by Coroner Somes in the BRC matter.

The Government has taken steps already in relation to problems identified by Coroner Madden and, no doubt, will continue to take steps to overcome inefficiencies and incompetencies in the system. Indeed, it is the duty of government to get rid of people who have failed so much that they are no longer deserving of keeping their jobs. It is the duty of a government and it is the duty of the Ministers responsible for those departments to ensure that that occurs. But, traditionally, no Minister has had to resign because of the actions of departmental staff. That is simply a fundamental part of the Westminster system.

Were the Assembly to vote today to dismiss the Chief Minister it would, in fact, be departing not only from established precedent, albeit there have been only three instances in this place because we have only been going for 10 years, but also from probably several centuries of Westminster principle in the British Parliament and the parliaments of the British Commonwealth. I would ask members to think very carefully about that. Let us ensure that we do not impose a new set of standards on Ministers which neither side of politics could ever hope to live up to.

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