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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 12 Hansard (24 November) . . Page.. 3593 ..
MS TUCKER (continuing):
community does want to see government taking primary responsibility for ensuring the safety and wellbeing of the community. People do not want government managed as a business because they realise that business is driven by the profit motive and this requires an approach of risk management which is unsuitable for the management of essential services and the wellbeing of a community.
I was interested to hear Mr Osborne's comments this morning. I am glad to see that he also is now concerned about this Government's approach. Unfortunately, he seems to think he will be able to effect a total change by introducing some sort of legislative package which will improve the integrity and strength of the Public Service. In my view this will not be possible unless there is political will from the government of the day to support such change, and it is clear that that will is not there presently. Improving and changing the culture of the Public Service will take more than just changing employment arrangements for senior officials.
It has become obvious in previous no-confidence debates in this Assembly that different MLAs have different views of what ministerial responsibility means. To try to get some definition, I had a look at House of Representatives Practice, which quotes some earlier reports which dealt with this concept. Let me quote a section that caught my attention:
... while ministers continue to be held accountable to Parliament in the sense of being obliged to answer to it when Parliament so demands, and to indicate corrective action if that is called for, they themselves are not held culpable - and in consequence bound to resign or suffer dismissal - unless the action which stands condemned was theirs, or taken on their direction, or was action with which they ought obviously to have been concerned.
That is relevant. Another section that is also relevant says:
Resignation is still a valid sanction where ministers have been indiscreet or arbitrary in exercising power. In cases where the minister has misled parliament, condoned or authorised a blatantly unreasonable use of executive power ...
There is also an interesting section that is very relevant to this no-confidence motion. It says:
Parliament is the correct forum, the only forum, to test or expose ministerial administrative competence or fitness to hold office. However, allegations of a different kind, that is, offences against the law, should not be tried by parliament. The proper forum for those allegations is the courts.
On the basis of this view, I believe it is very appropriate for this Assembly to be debating the political role of the Chief Minister in the implosion and to express our lack of confidence in her actions even though we know there are criminal offences that will come before the courts in the future.
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