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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 11 Hansard (29 November) . . Page.. 3434 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

that there is a decline in academic interest in the collection but rather that perhaps the uncertain future of the archives has restricted access to this collection. If you were a researcher initiating a three to five year research project and you knew that the university was intent on winding back the archives, perhaps to the extent of closing the archives altogether, you may choose not to use the archives. By making access uncertain, difficult or impractical, that material is lost to researchers and, through their work, is lost as a source of reflection to Australians as a group.

As a parliamentarian, as a representative of members of the community, by supporting this motion I would like to try to pass a strong request to the university to reconsider their current direction on the archives. But I also recognise that although the university is not fighting the trend, at least in public, it is also not acting alone. We need to realise that this situation is a consequence of the federal government's failure to fund universities adequately. Common wealth in many forms is at risk, and this is another example. I would also suggest that other members in this place need to see the consequences of failure to adequately care for such public goods.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Debate resumed from 29 March 2000, on motion by Ms Tucker:

(1) agreeing that the ACT community should have legislative control over the structure of their Legislative Assembly;

(2) agreeing that the size of the Assembly should change in proportion to changes in the population of electors in the ACT;

(3) agreeing that a ratio of 1 Member per 10,000 electors, as recommended in the Pettit Review of Governance of the ACT, is an appropriate ratio of Members of the Assembly to the number of electors;

(4) agreeing that the Assembly should continue to have an odd number of Members; and

(5) affirming the principles of the proportional representation (Hare-Clark) electoral system laid out in section 4 of the Proportional Representation (Hare-Clark) Entrenchment Act 1994;

requests the Chief Minister to -

(1) undertake discussions with the Commonwealth Minister for Territories to achieve -

(a) amendments to the Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Act 1988 to devolve to the Assembly the power to determine the number of Members, or if this is not possible;

(b) a regulation under section 8 of the Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Act 1988 to fix a different number of Members;

with the aim of fixing the number of Members to be elected in the first election after 2001 as the largest odd number that is less than the number of enrolled electors at the time of the 2001 election divided by 10,000.

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