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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (10 July) . . Page.. 2436 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

That does raise an issue for us which this parliament needs to address. That is perhaps something for the future, but I think we do need to devise a way through this matter. The Assembly does need to work together on it. We do need to look at the self-government act and we do need to look at what are the accepted principles under which this particular parliament will operate.

Mr Humphries: That is your decision, not ours.

MR STANHOPE: I just said that we need to work together. We have a serious issue here that needs to be addressed. You made the point and you threw down the challenge yourself, Attorney, that it is for the Labor Party now to determine what convention would apply to the blocking of a budget. The Chief Minister is on the record as saying explicitly that when a budget it not passed, it is for the government to resign. That is stated clearly in the Hansard of 25 November and I have read it into the Hansard of today.

But the Chief Minister did not resign. She said five years ago that you should and she now says that you should not. Another convention has been established here. Should, in the circumstances you spoke of, a Liberal opposition not provide the support to pass a Labor budget, you have now established the convention that there is no convention as to whether the government should resign. You talk to us about what you would do in future if you were in opposition and we, as a minority government, were seeking your support to pass a budget, and I respond in kind.

You have just established a new precedent here that governments that cannot pass their budget have absolutely no need to take any action at all, other than to tough it out. I suggest that we really do need to work our way through these issues as a parliament, so that at least we are all working to what we understand to be the same rules.

MR HUMPHRIES (Treasurer, Attorney-General and Minister for Justice and Community Safety) (4.44): Mr Speaker, I note Mr Stanhope's comment about that and I do not indicate that we are opposed to the idea of having a discussion of that kind. I think it would be important for what were described by Mr Connolly in 1995 as, I think, the financial initiatives of the crown needing to be quite clearly articulated and understood in this place. I think that some discussion of that would be quite useful, so I do not indicate any opposition to Mr Stanhope's suggestion.

Mr Berry: Changed your position, then.

MR HUMPHRIES: No, I am not changing my position.

Mr Berry: Yes, you have.

MR HUMPHRIES: No, I have not.

Mr Stanhope: What about seven 3-member electorates; would you back that?

MR HUMPHRIES: No. I know that you would like that.

Mr Stanhope: That is one way through.

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