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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (10 July) . . Page.. 2432 ..
MR STANHOPE (continuing):
This was the view of Mrs Carnell when she was Leader of the Opposition; how things change. Mrs Carnell went on to say:
The reason why I believe strongly that a vote against this single line in this budget would be a matter of confidence in this Government-in other words, the sort of thing that would mean that the Government would resign-is that it is not one line of a budget; it is a budget as a whole. It is the position that we have taken and, to my knowledge, every other government has always taken when it comes to a budget.-
that the government will resign-
If this line or, for that matter, any other line of the budget were defeated, the Government would have no choice but to resign.
Mr Corbell: When did she say that?
MR STANHOPE: The Chief Minister said that in a debate in the Assembly on 23 November 1995. She concluded that speech with these words:
I think that goes without saying.
Let me just repeat Mrs Carnell's views on what it means to have a budget not passed. What are Mrs Carnell's views about not having a budget passed? Let me just repeat them. This is Mrs Carnell:
It is the position that we have taken and, to my knowledge, every other government has always taken when it comes to a budget. If this line or, for that matter, any other line of the budget were defeated, the Government would have no choice but to resign. I think that goes without saying
Mr Berry: Crispin Hull never picked that up.
MR STANHOPE: That is right; but that was a little while ago and it is amazing how these things change. That view of Mrs Carnell's was reinforced not only by the opinion of the Attorney-General's Department to which I referred but also by advice received just 10 days ago from Dr George Williams, Senior Lecturer in Constitutional Law at the Australian National University, who said:
On the conventions of responsible government that operate in Australia, it [the defeat of the Budget] leaves the Government open to the charge that it is not fit to continue to govern because it lacks the full confidence of a majority in the Assembly.
As I said, respect for convention and, apparently, respect for things that she said earlier when it was convenient for her to say them is not one of Mrs Carnell's strong suits. We saw that with the illegal expenditure of unappropriated money on the redevelopment of
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