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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 12 Hansard (12 November) . . Page.. 3445 ..

Public Sector Management Act-Public Sector Management Amendment Standards 2002 (No 4)-Disallowable Instrument DI2002-181 (LR, 14 October 2002).

Race and Sports Bookmaking Act-Sports Bookmaking Events Determination 2002 (No 1)-Disallowable Instrument DI2002-173 (LR, 26 September 2002).

Supreme Court Act-Supreme Court Amendment Rules 2002 (No 2)-Subordinate Law SL2002-24 (LR, 18 September 2002).

Tree Protection (Interim Scheme) Act-Tree Protection (Interim Scheme) Instrument of Appointment 2002-Disallowable Instrument DI2002-184 (LR, 24 October 2002).

Labor government

Discussion of matter of public importance

MR SPEAKER: I have received a letter from Mr Humphries proposing that a matter of public importance be submitted to the Assembly, namely:

The ACT Labor government's broken promises after a year in office.

MR HUMPHRIES (Leader of the Opposition) (3.52): Mr Speaker, as the Chief Minister has already chosen to remind us this afternoon, today marks 12 months in which the Labor Party in the ACT has actually held the reins of office. The period between 20 October and 12 November was, of course, spent counting votes and deciding who won seats and so forth-and this was the day, 12 months ago, that Labor took office.

So today is the appropriate day to measure the extent of achievement or failure on the part of the Labor government, and to determine whether or not this government has fulfilled the very high expectations it created for this community during the election in 2001, and whether they are to be given credit for having done what they said they were going to do.

Labor emerged into government last year after the longest period in opposition of any party since self-government began. Obviously we have had only a relatively small experience of self-government-only 13 or 14 years-but Labor has spent almost seven years in the wilderness. Those are seven years in which one might expect there would be a great deal of work done focusing on vision, specific policies, and on what they intend to achieve during the precious time the electorate gives a particular political party the privilege of government.

The first year in government is always especially significant in a three-year parliament. In a three-year parliament it is generally accepted that there is a period of settling in. There will also be the reality of a caretaker convention cutting in about six or eight weeks before the next election. That is a period in which the government tries not to embark on too many new things, because it is hard to carry them through over an election period. So, effectively, a government's period of peak performance is somewhere around two or 21/2 years. A large part of that falls in the first year in office.

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