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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 8 Hansard (27 June) . . Page.. 2306 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

Submitters included academics and local citizens, as well as the major political parties, minor political parties, the ACT government and yourself, the Speaker of the ACT Legislative Assembly.

The committee thought it was very important to set the whole issue in a historical context, so it examined past Assembly inquiries into the size of the legislature as well as a range of academic and other viewpoints. It also looked at how the ACT got to where it is in relation to parliamentary representation.

The committee's report is a very detailed report. It amounts to over 30,000 words. We have set out a lot of the history, the context and a summary of the views of the various persons and bodies appearing before us.

Seven recommendations are made. Two of those are not unanimous. The members who disagree with the majority state in the report why they do so.

The committee unanimously considers that the Legislative Assembly should be increased in size. Two members consider that it should be increased to 21 members from three equal electorates, each having seven members. This is the most modest increase, and it would fit with the likely situation of the ACT having three federal electorates in time for the next ACT election in 2004.

Two members also felt that the government should consider increasing the term of the Assembly to four years from the present three years. The member disagreeing with that recommendation did not oppose the measure outright but called for further investigation.

I think the report is fair, balanced and historical. It demonstrates the quality of the Assembly's committees, where members get together to examine very complex issues and come up with proposals that respect the evidence and suggest a way forward for our community.

I would like to thank my colleagues on the committee for their input and very careful study of the evidence. The report will prove very useful to our community for some time into the future.

The first recommendation, a unanimous one, is a very important one, because it commends the action of this Assembly in requesting the Chief Minister to undertake discussions with the Commonwealth government to amend the self-government act to devolve to the Assembly the power to determine the number of members.

The committee recommends that the Chief Minister also seek an amendment to the self-government act to remove the power of the Commonwealth to fix the number of ministers that make up the ACT executive. That was last done in about 1990, under the Alliance government. Currently we can have five ministers, including the Chief Minister. It is right and proper for the future good governance of this territory that this Assembly should pick how many members it has and how many ministers it can have.

The committee unanimously considered that the present size of the Assembly makes it difficult for the Assembly to perform its functions as a legislative body in the Westminster system. This is particularly evident in committee activity and executive

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