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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 6 Hansard (24 May) . . Page.. 1704 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

Accepting the document requires a commitment to achieving tangible outcomes. It must be more than a token gesture. If this motion is passed, we will be doing everything we can. If it is not passed, then I believe history will judge us as the people who did nothing.

MS CARNELL (Chief Minister) (5.24): This government considers it entirely appropriate for the Legislative Assembly to reaffirm its commitment to reconciliation. While this government agrees with the broad sentiments of Mr Stanhope's motion, we cannot agree with the actions that this motion suggests. I therefore propose to move an amendment which will provide the Assembly with an opportunity to make a positive statement about reconciliation prior to Reconciliation Week. I circulated that amendment earlier today.

There are three parts to Mr Stanhope's motion. The first we have debated before. This government believes that the Assembly should not support federal intervention to overturn mandatory sentencing laws. As I have stated before in this chamber, I believe it is true that a large percentage of the people in this Assembly do not support the sort of legislation that went through in the Northern Territory and Western Australian parliaments.

We have debated this before, and virtually everybody in this place believes that the legislation is simply inappropriate. It certainly would be not be passed or even contemplated in this place. However, because those laws did go through appropriately elected parliaments, then those parliaments are the appropriate avenue by which to repeal those laws.

It is not for the ACT government to tell those parliaments whether they have a good law or a bad law. From our perspective, it is a bad law and therefore would not be contemplated in this place. That is the task of the people who elected them. It is for the people of Western Australia or the Northern Territory to say, "This is not good enough. These are not appropriate laws. These are not laws we support." That is not the role of people who are not involved in the democratic process in those particular areas.

This Assembly has been very vocal about any suggestion that its power to make legislation should be fettered. Specifically, the Assembly has expressed its dissatisfaction with the Commonwealth government passing its euthanasia legislation. In fact, Mr Humphries, Mr Moore and many other people in this house said they believed it was inappropriate for the federal government to override Northern Territory law and potential ACT law.

Similarly, it would be inappropriate for this Assembly to suggest to the Commonwealth that they should override mandatory sentencing legislation that has been duly passed in the Northern Territory. Again, we have debated this before in this place. How would this Assembly feel if the federal government decided to override our X-rated video legislation, our supervised injecting place legislation, our legislation with regard to brothels or prostitution, or our legislation with regard to the rights of same-sex couples. There would be some people in this Assembly who would think that was probably quite a good deal, but I do not believe the majority of people in this place would support that

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