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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 11 Hansard (29 November) . . Page.. 3440 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

Our decision today to support the inquiry in the terms of the amendment that I have proposed is a commitment by the Labor Party to join the Liberal Party in seeking out that community advice or opinion on this subject. We are here signalling that we are prepared to endorse and support a form of consultation with the community with a view to coming to some understanding of what the broader community thinks about a more desirable membership or size for the Assembly.

That is what we are here today signalling in the terms of the amendment I have moved. We are prepared in a bipartisan way to join the Liberal Party and the Greens at this stage, and I hope other members of the Assembly, in at least endorsing a stratagem of consultation for seeking to determine the views of the broader community and whether they would accept the views of many members of this place that there are serious constraints on our capacity not only to fulfil our roles within this place as parliamentarians, but also to fulfil to the extent that we would like some of our broader constituent or electoral responsibilities.

It seems to me, and I think everybody in this place would agree with me, that there is significant pressure on the committee system. Mr Moore alluded to this in his address. I know that this is an issue on which Mr Hird has some heartfelt views and opinions, as do you, Mr Speaker. But the committee system within this place certainly does strain at the seams from time to time and I am of the view that we do not through the committee system deliver the optimal results that I would hope we as a parliament would deliver in relation to our capacity to service the inquiries and the committees that we seek to service as members of this place. Similarly, I am concerned at our capacity to meet fully the needs of each of our constituents and of the constituent groups. I think there are genuine issues there in relation to the capacity of members of this parliament, with its limitation of 17 members, to meet some of their obligations as parliamentarians.

Over and above that, there is a range of other issues, some of which I have alluded to, such as the fact that self-government has had a rocky path and the fact that there are very good reasons for parliaments not to push ahead with changes or reforms of this nature if, in doing so, they are flying in the face of public opinion and public sentiment. It is a legitimate issue which this Assembly needs to have full account of before going down this path. It would be counterproductive, perhaps counterproductive in the extreme, for this Assembly to pursue a path of additional members if it was a path that was vigorously opposed and resented by our fellow citizens, by our constituents.

That is the position of the Labor Party. As I said, the Labor Party has signalled by this amendment that it is prepared to shift quite significantly to the point where it is prepared to say that it is happy to engage in the debate, that it would like the government to institute a process of consultation and that it is prepared to act in that sense in a bipartisan way. This is not a scheme for a stratagem or a design by the Labor Party to seek to force the Liberal Party, the government, into a position on this issue. We are simply asking the government to facilitate a process of consultation. We are prepared to accept that there are some political issues that need to be addressed by each of us in that regard. I am here giving an undertaking that we will approach this proposal, this process, in a bipartisan way.

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