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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (10 July) . . Page.. 2375 ..
Mr Stanhope: It should, but we never expected that it would.
MR HUMPHRIES: That is not quite the case. Mr Speaker, we have had Mr Stanhope say the following in a media release on Monday, 3 July:
"We've seen before that she-
the Chief Minister-
has no understanding of parliamentary convention. If she had ... she would have immediately resigned when she failed to get her Budget passed by the Assembly.
Mr Berry: Hear, hear!
MR HUMPHRIES: "Hear, hear," says Mr Berry. Mr Speaker, this is unprecedented in the ACT Assembly, since there had not been a budget rejected prior to the week before last, but there has been comment about the situation in the past by others in this place, including by the Labor Party's former Attorney-General, Mr Connolly. I want to quote what he said in 1995, in the first year of this government, when the very same issue arose of a possible blocking of the budget in this place. This is what he had to say:
To say that the Government would have no alternative but to resign if a single line in the budget were changed is merely political puff. It is not a statement of the constitutional position in this Assembly. It is in the House of Representatives, because there is no other prescribed form for dismissing a government...that is not the case here because, under our constitutional arrangements under the self-government Act, there is a prescribed form for changing a government. That prescribed form requires a specific motion, with specific notice being given of that specific motion. It has been made very clear on this side of the house-
that is, the Labor side-
when we say that we are objecting to this, that this is not a matter of confidence; that this is a matter of negotiating a budget process.
Mr Berry: You were the ones who said that you would rise and fall on it.
MR HUMPHRIES: I know that you are uncomfortable about being told what you said a few years ago, but the tradition which you say exists that governments should resign apparently did not exist, according to your legal spokesman, back in 1995.
Mr Berry: Yes, it did, and you misinterpreted what he said.
MR HUMPHRIES: No, I did not misinterpret what he said.
Mr Berry: I will explain.
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