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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (10 July) . . Page.. 2431 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

a requirement the Assembly imposed to include foetal pictures in information provided to women seeking abortions. He said that it was a requirement he despised, but his commitment to the higher order of priority demanded that he respond to the Assembly's democratic vote as the minister responsible for that legislation. The most important priority is the democratic process, said Mr Moore.

Where is the application of the minister's higher order in his approach to today's debate? The minister knows that the Assembly voted last December in favour of a clinical trial of a supervised injecting room. It was legislation that he introduced and legislation that he was responsible for; but he has allowed himself, with the rest of the government, to be held hostage by two Independents who will not accept the democratic decision in that matter.

Mr Moore has allowed himself to be party to a deal that trashes the democratic process. He is a willing partner to a deal that foreshadows the worst form of wedge politics for the Canberra community at the next election. In Mr Moore's higher order of principles and priorities, the sanctity of the democratic process obviously is not number one.

Mr Moore is not the only one to abandon convention. The Chief Minister has such a poor record in this matter as to make one question whether she even recognises the role of procedure and convention in guiding the operation of this parliament. There is no doubt that convention required the Chief Minister to resign on the loss of her government's budget. There is no doubt that convention required the Chief Minister to resign, but the Chief Minister refused to accept convention.

For a moment she argued that, because the injecting room legislation has passed the Assembly, convention required the government to fund it. That was one argument along the way, but that line of argument was dropped like the proverbial in the face of Mr Osborne's demands. Mrs Carnell found it easier to abandon convention. In so doing, she flew in the face of longstanding practice and did so against an initiative of her own party and her own earlier stated views.

Mr Humphries has made much today of the debate in the Assembly in 1995 when the then Attorney-General moved to reaffirm the principles of the Westminster system. That move was to reduce the power non-executive members may have had to amend money bills to increase expenditure. In the course of the debate a series of legal advisings were tabled, among them one from the Constitutional and Law Reform Branch of the Attorney-General's Department. That advice said in relation to that debate:

Traditionally, if a parliament refuses to pass an appropriation or supply bill, or, in some cases, if the parliament simply reduces one item by a token amount, it signifies that the Executive has lost the confidence of the parliament.

Mr Humphries: Traditionally, yes, but not here.

MR STANHOPE: That is right. Of course, that is what we are talking about-the Chief Minister's application to principle, convention and accepted rules of Westminster democracy. Mrs Carnell participated in that debate. This is what Mrs Carnell said at the time:

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