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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 2 Hansard (1 March) . . Page.. 463 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

function, namely the making of regulations, made regulations that were bitterly and publicly opposed by the responsible minister, a member of cabinet.

This is quite a clear breach of all notions of ministerial responsibility and of cabinet solidarity-a fundamental Westminster principle that when the cabinet acts, when the executive acts, it is clearly understood that it is acting as a unit. It is only in that way that a cabinet or an executive can be held accountable to the Assembly, to the legislature, and through the legislature to the people, for its actions.

That is the fundamental principle of notions of cabinet solidarity and ministerial responsibility. It is perhaps the only device by which an executive can be held responsible to a legislature. What measure of accountability can there be of an executive-that is, the government, the cabinet-if on particular issues the member is simply hived off and says, "Look, I'll accept responsibility for this decision, but I won't accept responsibility for that decision."

It actually dilutes and diffuses the possibility of an executive being held appropriately accountable if the members of the executive, the members of the cabinet, can simply pick and choose which particular items of government decision-making they are prepared to be responsible or accountable to the legislature of the people for, and then decide, "Well, you know, I didn't really like this very much; I'll adopt a public position. I'll appeal to my particular constituency in the electorate on this particular issue by saying 'Well, I'm a member of the cabinet, I'm a member of the executive, but I don't like this particular policy initiative, so I'll stand down from it'."

The Chief Minister, in responding to this particular amendment the other day, indicated that the difficulty with the approach that I am suggesting is that it simply renders impossible the taking of a position by a member of cabinet on a conscience issue. And of course we all acknowledge that there are a range of issues that are regarded, quite appropriately, as raising issues of conscience, and it is acknowledged and accepted that on those issues each member of this place should express their conscience position. And abortion, of course, is one of those.

But each of the parliaments in Australia, and each of the Westminster parliaments around the world, deals with this issue of conscience, and deals with it appropriately, and they deal with it without undermining notions of executive or cabinet solidarity. There is no other parliament that I know of that has dealt with the conscience issue, say, of abortion-we do not have to dwell on abortion in relation to this example, but they deal with it in the same way in relation to euthanasia-and it is dealt with in each of those other jurisdictions in Australia and around the world by not taking conscience issues to cabinet. You do not take a conscience issue to cabinet.

You do not take issues in relation to abortion law reform to cabinet. You do not take issues in relation to euthanasia law reform to cabinet. You deal with them as a private members matter, and each member of cabinet adopts a conscience position as a member of the legislature, outside of cabinet.

In no other parliament in Australia have issues in relation to conscience issues been taken to the cabinet and dealt with in the way that this government dealt with the last debate we had on abortion. I know of no other government that takes conscience issues

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