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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (10 July) . . Page.. 2409 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

which is acceptable to a couple of members of the crossbench. Those members are entitled to negotiate to achieve the outcome they want, but this government should not simply be interested in satisfying them. This government should be committed to implementing its reform, the reform it says it so passionately believes in. It could have done so. It could have accepted Labor's offer to resolve the impasse in a way that still allowed it to implement the legislation it was committed to. The offer was there, clear and simple. We can have an argument about times or places or who said what to whom. But it is on the public record: the offer was there.

Equally, the government could have taken on board the views of other crossbench members. It could have accepted Ms Tucker's point that it was not just a case of the government needing to negotiate with a couple of members. It was a case of the government, of the Chief Minister as the key leadership figure in this place, needing to speak to all members on the best way to resolve the budget impasse. But did the Chief Minister seek out, say, Ms Tucker to resolve that problem? She did not. That was a complete abrogation of her responsibilities as Chief Minister in a minority government and a sad indictment of the way business is done in this place.

Mr Osborne and Mr Rugendyke are entitled to their views. They hold them strongly, and they represent people who feel similarly. But the majority of members in this place are of a different persuasion. They would like to see that reform implemented.

I want to close by commenting on Mr Moore's views on this matter. My leader, Mr Stanhope, made a comment about those issues on which Mr Moore was able to excuse himself from the decisions of government. One of those, as we know very well, is drug law reform. I have worked with Mr Moore on quite a number of occasions on other issues when he saw fit to exclude himself from government decisions, cabinet decisions, most of them on planning issues. I have always been grateful for his support and his willingness to exercise his vote as an the independent he claims that he is and, in those instances, demonstrates that he is.

Why on this most contentious of all possible issues, is Mr Moore unwilling to vote to reject this amendment bill and to implement the law of the territory as originally agreed to by this place late last year? It would appear to me that the answer lies in the realm of political expediency, rather than in a serious ongoing commitment to implement this reform. That is not a thing I say lightly, Mr Speaker, but Mr Moore has options that he has closed himself off from. As a result, it would appear that legislation will be amended to make it virtually impossible for this reform to be implemented. That is a sad comment on how politics works in this place. But decisions of the Assembly are decisions of the Assembly, and we all work with them at the end of the day. As Mr Stanhope said earlier in the debate, this is not the way to implement progressive reform. It is not the way to bring a community with you on an issue. It is, instead, a way to divide and splinter a community so that no serious attempt at trying new things will ever be possible again.

For that reason and the reasons I gave in my comments earlier, the Labor Party will not be supporting this amendment bill. As Mr Stanhope has said, the budget can be passed with the injection room. But the outcome of that decision is not in our hands.

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