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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 12 Hansard (7 December) . . Page.. 3819 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

That is the first thing. The second thing is that the government cannot impose its will on the Assembly. There are seven members in government and there are another 10 members who are not in government; so that is possible. But we can do what Mr Stefaniak has done. He has brought this motion to the Assembly and sought to get the Assembly's support for something that he thinks is very important.

Mr Kaine had a spurious argument about how the government should do their own analysis. Of course they will. The first thing that happens when a committee is looking into something like this is that the government presents to the committee the government's view on what it thinks should be the case. Mr Stefaniak and I have had quite a number of discussions on this subject and we disagree on some of the issues, so Mr Stefaniak has said, "Let us ask the committee for its view on whether we should proceed down a particular path after we have put the government's position to it." That is how the system always operates. It is a perfectly reasonable and sensible approach by the government to seek to consult, otherwise the government will get bashed over the head if it has a view that somebody does not like.

When we use the committee process to express a view on going into new territory we have all members looking at it and trying to understand what it is that the government is trying to achieve without going into the raw politics of the proposal. It is not a case of there being no consultation. The government is saying, "We want to consult on something. We have a view on it, but there are some questions about it and we want to get the view of the committee on it. We want the committee to try to give us some guidance as to how we operate." I notice that Ms Tucker has circulated an amendment to a motion about housing which is not on the program today but which she also talked about in a newspaper. The government has put up a policy on that and there is already a political aspect to it.

I turn to the final thing I would like to say. I am pleased that Mr Kaine is here to hear it. Mr Kaine described the government as arrogant in dealing with these issues. I would like to remind Mr Kaine that the Assembly gave the committee that he chaired an inquiry into taxis. I remember it because I put the motion to the Assembly, got its support and asked Mr Kaine to look at that. Mr Kaine's response was simply to ignore it, never to do the inquiry, in spite of the fact that the Assembly had charged the committee with that responsibility. I think there is a little bit of the kettle calling the pot black here.

When we look at each of these issues we ought to try to understand what is trying to be achieved. I accept that. I accept that he had a different view, and that is the way he handled it. At the time, I did not go along to Mr Kaine and say, and I could have, "Come on, the Assembly has asked you to do this. Why aren't you doing it?" I let it ride because I knew that he had other reasons and he had prioritised. The point I am trying to make is that when you are standing in this place and saying that somebody else is arrogant, is ignoring something or whatever, you need to think about how we operate in this place and what the government is trying to achieve. The government is asking whether a majority of the members of the Assembly believe that it is appropriate and in order for the committee to look at this issue and try to provide us with the appropriate consultation on that. That is what it is about. We are seeking the support of a majority of members for this proposal because Mr Stefaniak thinks that it may be a way of improving the delivery of education services.

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