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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 10 Hansard (28 August) . . Page.. 2964 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

I do not think the speech Mr Hargreaves just delivered greatly enhanced the maturity of the parliament. In fact, the naivety it displayed probably took the maturity of this parliament back a few steps. It certainly would not advance the image of the parliament in the eyes of many in this community.

I hate to be legalistic about this, but let us introduce a note of realism into this debate. The ACT is not a sovereign jurisdiction. The ACT is certainly not in the position of a self-governing, autonomous nation. In respect of its legal position, it is not even in the position of being at the equivalent level of an Australian state. The ACT political system-the ACT polity-is the creation of a federal act of parliament. That is an act which-let us be frank-could, at the sweep of a pen by the federal parliament, be repealed. Self-government could be removed in this territory in a very short space of time, were the federal government or the federal parliament so minded.

When Mr Hargreaves talks about sovereignty, I ask, what sovereignty? We have a measure of self-determination-a measure of self-government. However, we must be aware of the fact that the federal parliament in its wisdom-and let us remember this was legislation of a federal Labor government, the Hawke government in 1988-gave the ACT only a limited measure of self-government. We do not have the powers enjoyed by other states. We do not have the power, for example, to classify material for the purposes of censorship, whereas other states do-because the federal parliament decided that we would not have that power. We do not have the power to determine rules relating to the regulation of companies-because the federal parliament decided we would not have that power. We do not have the power, at the present time, to regulate the size of the Legislative Assembly.

Mr Hargreaves: We should have.

MR HUMPHRIES: On all those points, Mr Hargreaves, I simply say to you that your party's government, federally, did not give us those powers.

Mr Hargreaves: And your party did not change it.

MR HUMPHRIES: That is right. Our party inherited those laws from the former Hawke Labor government, and it works within the framework of that legislation. Dislike it as we may, the position of Mr Tuckey, the federal minister, is that he has a legal responsibility to consider the appropriateness of changing the size of the Legislative Assembly.

I have a view about this which has been expressed clearly both in this place and in the media. Mr Hargreaves knows that view because he has discussed it with me-and I am aware of the Labor Party's view. My view is that the Legislative Assembly should be enlarged. However, I cannot assert, against the legal reality, that our decision is final on that subject. Perhaps it should be. Indeed, I would go so far as to say our decision probably should be final, but the fact of the matter is that it is not. We have to accept that fact and work within the framework we have inherited. As I say, it ill behoves the Labor Party to lecture us about why the limitations of self-government are being observed by the federal minister and the federal government, when it was their own government, federally, which put those limitations in place.

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