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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 9 Hansard (23 August) . . Page.. 3289 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

People in a town like Canberra have a high degree of exposure to the workings of government. Many people are working for government as public servants. They understand how things work and what happens. They understand the background of and the reason for many decisions. They understand when there is not an adequate background or reason for certain decisions to be made.

We reach a stage, I think, where we need to question the idea, inherited from several hundred years ago, that we elect representatives and send those representatives off to a certain place, a parliament, and there is no comeback for those citizens until the next choice in three years time, or whenever it might be-at present it is four years-when there is another election of those representatives. The idea that we can entrust them with all the decision-making powers for that three-year period or longer is an idea which is or will be under serious threat in the future. People want government to be more responsive to what is going on. When I say government, I mean and include parliament in that concept.

Mr Berry: Nobody rang me.

MR HUMPHRIES: They want people to be able to be involved. They want people to be able to be involved in decision-making processes.

Mr Berry: Not one caller have I had that has said they want CIR.

MR HUMPHRIES: I listened to the previous speeches in silence, Mr Berry, and I ask for the same privilege from you.

MR TEMPORARY DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Hird): Yes, and I do too, Mr Berry. The Chief Minister has the call.

MR HUMPHRIES: I think in 50 years time, or 70 or 100 years time, people are going to look back on this age of parliaments which are unaccountable between elections as being a phase in democratic development which would be regarded as as quaint and outdated at that period in the future as today we would regard the idea that only men with land holdings are entitled to vote at parliamentary elections. These ideas are now considered to be untenable and to be the product of a society which has disappeared. I think this model, one day, will suffer the same fate.

Ms Tucker said in this debate that the Greens believed in participatory democracy as one of the pillars of their philosophy of government and how society should run itself. I think that is not just a matter for paying lip service to; we actually have to put it into practice.

How do we allow people to take part in decisions? Of course, we can consult them. We can ask them to comment on things. We can put documents out and say, "Would you like to put your view forward about this document?" But with the best will in the world, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, there is a gross power imbalance in that situation. Members of parliament can reject a view with which they disagree. The fact is that they very often do. Not just governments, but parliaments and parliamentarians, if they do not like the idea, can be persuaded and are persuaded to give the idea short shrift. It doesn't matter what people say, the idea almost always gets short shrift.

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