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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 10 Hansard (23 September) . . Page.. 3528 ..

MS TUCKER (3.58): Mr Speaker, there are a couple of issues here for me. The first point I want to make is that I agree with some of the comments from Jon Stanhope about the role of the executives in this Assembly or in most parliaments. I agree that it is not appropriate to assume that the Assembly can direct the executives through a motion in a way that is binding. That has never been my understanding. Actually, at one point I did have that understanding-going through the Gallop inquiry.

At that time there was an issue, and to get around it, from memory, we were going to draft legislation which would have created a situation where the Assembly could have taken responsibility for the expenditure of public money because they could have initiated a commission of inquiry, which requires expenditure of a considerable amount of money. The government at the time, the Liberals, were very concerned about that-for good reason, in my view-but went with the will of the Assembly rather than see that happen.

The question is not just about whether the Assembly can direct the executive through a motion. I do not think we can. The question is: what is the political weight of a motion of the Assembly to the executive? Motions are used, obviously, to communicate to the executive the view of a member. If they get majority support, then it is reasonable to conclude that the people representing a large number of people in the community have a particular view. The question then is: what is the response of the executive to that? It is very important that the executive gives due consideration to motions for that reason.

Mr Corbell has argued in his defence that this motion was inflexible and required him to do things that, in good faith, he felt he could not do, for the various reasons he has outlined. Where I have a difference of opinion with Mr Corbell is that that motion actually did not require such a rigid response, even if the minister thought that that motion was quite inflexible-I do not have a copy of the motion with me here, but it has been repeated several times-calling on the government to look at negotiating a land swap or compensation-

Mr Corbell: It did not call on-

MS TUCKER: "Calling on"or "directing".

Mr Corbell: It did not call on-

MS TUCKER: It did not call on. "Requested".

Mr Corbell: It said that the ACT government negotiate.

MS TUCKER: Okay. It was a direct call on the government to do something.

Mr Corbell: No, it did not call on it.

MS TUCKER: All right. The interjection from the minister was that we were directing the government-it seems to me that that is what he is saying-and that is not appropriate. That may be the case, and I accept that. But the point is that a conversation occurred in this place. You can use the arguments that are being used today, but that is

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