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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 10 Hansard (28 August) . . Page.. 2962 ..

MR HARGREAVES (continuing):

On the size of the Assembly, it is clear that neither he nor his staff have read the report of the standing committee to the ACT Legislative Assembly. A minister in his position should not make stupid assumptions and comments until he has apprised himself of the facts. The Assembly is having the debate about the workings of ACT democracy. The federal minister has no role in that debate. His role comes at the end of the process, not the beginning.

In the interests of comparison, the ACT has 220,000 electors, currently represented by 17 members of the Legislative Assembly. This is a ratio of one member of parliament to 12,941 electors, to take care of municipal and state-level responsibilities. We have two federal members and two senators.

In Western Australia-the home of the minister-whilst there are 1,184,058 electors, there are 57 members of the Legislative Assembly and 34 members of the Legislative Council. There are 142 shire and city councils, with a rough average of nine members-totalling more than 1,278 councillors.

This creates a ratio of one politician to 865 electors. Further, Western Australia has 12 senators, and 15 members in the House of Representatives. Mr Tuckey talks about there being too many politicians in the ACT. A solution is to increase the numbers of their staff.

Sure, geography plays a big role in this argument. However, by no stretch of the imagination can he suggest that we are over-governed, when he enjoys a ratio of 1:865 and we have a ratio of 1:12,941. To me, there seems to be a thread of consistency in all of this. That is, members of the Liberal Party have not woken up to the fact that the ACT electorate has rejected them.

Their divine-right-to-rule attitude means they must subvert the democratic process and revert to the constitutional monarchy model. The Liberal Party, through the ACT president of the party and, I believe, in partnership with the parliamentary party, is pulling the strings of the self-appointed ACT governor-the minister for territories.

Imagine the scenario where the parliamentary Liberal Party passes its views to the party president, Gary Kent, who is also an adviser on local government matters to the minister for territories. The minister then utters decrees which are, coincidentally, in line with the ACT Liberal view, like their views on the Gungahlin Drive extension. Is this strange? We have heard the minister's utterings on the Gungahlin Drive extension.

Mr Speaker, earlier I posed the question, what is the point of the ACT having self-government if the Commonwealth is going to place unreasonable limitations on it? The issue before the Assembly today is crucial, if the Commonwealth continues its pattern of behaviour. We must assert our right to look after our own affairs. All parties in this place should indicate where they stand on this issue. Those opposite must recognise that they lost the election last year and not go running off to their federal colleagues, seeking to undermine the democratic processes in this place.

I would like to hear from individual members as to whether they are happy to have the democratic processes in this place subverted. We are all members of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and we are taking part in CPA discussions-around the

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