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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (10 July) . . Page.. 2435 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

One wonders how long the government intended to carry on with that dangerous nonsense. At least Labor's offer smoked out the deal constructed between the government and Mr Osborne and his brokers. And the offer still stood: Labor would have ensured the passage of the budget if the injecting place legislation had not passed today.

In guaranteeing passage of the budget, we were not indicating our support for it. I made that point clearly and strenuously to Mrs Carnell last Monday morning. We were prepared to support the budget to ensure that the democratic process and the reputation of this institution were not unduly sullied. That was the basis on which I made the approach. It was not because we supported the budget; we do not. We do not resile from that, but we were prepared to seek to protect the institution.

We do accept that the events of the past 10 days have offered some lessons. We know how far the government will go to cling to power. We know now the disregard the government has for parliamentary convention. We know that the government will succumb to the demands of the crossbench in any context and in any circumstance. We know the extent to which individual members of the government in this place are prepared to jettison principle and convention. These are some of the lessons that have been learnt in the past 10 days. There are a range of other lessons that have been learnt.

I think we all need to foreshadow now that there are issues in relation to what has occurred in the last 10 days that do need to be addressed. We have a circumstance here where it is quite obvious that there is no consensus in this place on the rules by which we are governed. It is quite clear that this side of the house has a different understanding and a different preparedness to respect the conventions under which we think we govern ourselves than others in this place.

It is a concern that five years ago the Chief Minister stood up in this place and said that if a budget is not passed, it is obvious that the government must resign. The Chief Minister concluded those remarks by saying, as I have just said, that that goes without saying. Five years ago, the Chief Minister was so confident of the proposition that if a government cannot get its budget, it goes without saying that it resigns. That was the convention under which we thought the Chief Minister was continuing to operate. We thought that that was her continuing position. We thought that until about 1 o'clock last Friday morning.

It is interesting that it was the convention under which the Canberra Times was continuing to propound its views and it is interesting that the Canberra Times' view of that particular convention changed between the commencement of the debate in relation to the budget and its conclusion, that theory was not transported into reality. The Canberra Times' view of the conventions under which we operate is the same as the Chief Minister's: until you are faced with the circumstance, the situation, you propound the view that in a circumstance where a budget is not passed, you resign.

That was the combined view of both the Canberra Times and the Chief Minister. The minute the budget failed to pass, they both changed their position. Having been confronted with the harsh reality of the need to resign, they each, for their own reasons and in their own way, declared there to be no such convention.

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