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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 1 Hansard (16 February) . . Page.. 157 ..

MS CARNELL (continuing):

got bigger is that there is now a youth forum. Do we want to get rid of that? I do not think so. Do we want to get rid of the NGO forum? I do not know. Do we want to get rid of the business forum that goes with CHOGM? Do we want to suggest that some of the 54 countries should not come this year because we want it to be smaller? I just do not think that we know what we are talking about when we ask - - -

Ms Tucker: We are just asking for it to be discussed. What are we afraid of? It is just a discussion.

MS CARNELL: Why do we want it discussed? Are we as an Assembly saying that CHOGM is too big? I would have to say that I do not know whether CHOGM is too big; so to put forward an amendment on something that we have no idea what we are talking about seems a little presumptuous, shall we say. My understanding is that a 10-person eminent committee, headed by Mr Mbeki, has been set up to look at the future of CHOGM. I am sure that a letter from this Assembly to Mr Mbeki would make the world of difference. I just do not think that we really know what we are asking for here. Maybe CHOGM should be bigger; I do not know and I do not think anybody else in this Assembly knows. I am just saying that, before we do something just because it seems like a good idea at the time, let us have a little bit of a think about what we are asking for.

What we are doing is asking the Commonwealth Government to work with the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting to rationalise the magnitude of future meetings to ensure that they are capable of being hosted by more Commonwealth nations than would be the case at this stage; so we are actually asking for CHOGM to be smaller. I have to say that I do not know whether CHOGM should be smaller and I do not think anyone in this place knows that, either.

MR MOORE (Minister for Health and Community Care) (11.40): Mr Speaker, I think there is another reason - in some ways, perhaps a more important reason - for opposing Mr Quinlan's amendment, that is, it is not consistent with the rest of the motion. The motion is about Canberra. It is about the location of the conference in Canberra. I am pre-empting the Assembly in the sense that if the amendment of Mrs Carnell were passed we would be talking about asking the Commonwealth to put in place a strategy that enhances the ability of Canberra to handle conferences of this type and kind, and appropriately so as the national capital. To open up a second line of argument then, as Mr Quinlan has done, and say, "By the way, let us also have a rethink about how big CHOGM is anyway", is not pertinent to what we are trying to do. I am not arguing that it goes to the extent of being inconsistent with standing orders, but we should be giving a clear indication of what we are doing.

We know that we have lost CHOGM. I must say that I was impressed with some of the things that Mr Kaine had to say about that. The question is: Do we want to let it go there or do we want to make sure that the Prime Minister understands our dissatisfaction with and disappointment about the fact that it has been lost? Let us make sure that we have the wherewithal to be able to allay the sorts of concerns that he has and that Mr Kaine spoke about trying to elicit from him. Mr Speaker, I think it is appropriate for us to leave Mr Quinlan's amendment for a different motion or for a letter - it does not have to

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