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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 11 Hansard (29 November) . . Page.. 3362 ..
MR RUGENDYKE (continuing):
I would like to foreshadow that I am tabling this bill today to enable us to have it debated next week. It is crucial that this situation be resolved and I will be seeking to have the bill debated and resolved before we break for the Christmas period. In a case like this where an absolute majority of the Assembly is compelled to support an inquiry, it is democratically appropriate that the inquiry go ahead.
That is a fundamental principle that the health minister attempted to introduce when he was on the crossbench. He announced the drafting of a bill to make it unlawful for the government to ignore a binding resolution of the Assembly, so I would expect that the health minister would be supportive of this bill, too.
I would like to read briefly a story published in the Canberra Times of 18 May 1995 under the headline "Bill plan to boost Assembly powers". It reads:
In an effort to give the Legislative Assembly more power over Cabinet, Independent MLA Michael Moore is drafting a Bill that would make Assembly resolutions binding. It would make it unlawful for the government to ignore a binding resolution of the Assembly. He issued drafting instructions to parliamentary counsel in April and expects to introduce the Bill in September. He said that it would be his most significant step in a series of manoeuvres intended to return power to the Assembly.
Mr Moore is then quoted as saying:
It is a return to the Westminster system before the party system and particularly party solidarity took over.
I am looking at a similar proposal because there has been no reasonable argument presented to stop the inquiry endorsed by the Assembly going ahead. The Chief Coroner states in his letter to the government that any coronial inquest into systemic issues must have a relationship to the deaths, but there is a range of other issues not related to the deaths that require urgent investigation and I am not prepared to wait another year or two for that to happen.
The Chief Coroner also stated that the conducting of an inquiry without any reference to issues involved in these three deaths remains a matter for the consideration of the Assembly and the government; in other words, there is no reason to stop the inquiry proceeding. If our hands were tied until the completion of every coronial inquest, theoretically we would never be able to hold an inquiry.
Mr Speaker, this is the solution to the problem and I commend it to the Assembly.
Debate (on motion by Mr Humphries ) adjourned to the next sitting.
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