Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 13 Hansard (26 November) . . Page.. 4720 ..

MR SPEAKER: Mr Quinlan, as you have already spoken, you will need the gracious leave of the Assembly to speak again.

MR QUINLAN: No, I can speak to the amendment.

MR SPEAKER: There is an amendment, of course. You can speak to the amendment.

MR QUINLAN: The amendment says that the findings shall be presented at the same time as the report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts inquiry on revenue raising. There are a couple of things I would like to say-and be a little repetitive. I do think that this approach is wrongheaded, and I think I articulated my thoughts on that in relation to another motion about the government having to report on concessions to landlords. I think that was the last one.

I did make the point-and I think it should be made again, whether it falls on deaf ears or not-that we are asking here the administration effectively, because they are the ones who are going to do the work, to serve two masters. I want to read from the Legislative Assembly of the ACT Standing Committee on Administration and Procedure's Report No 4, paragraph 116:

However, as a separate issue, the committee came to the view that decisions about how the Assembly will manage its relationship with InTACT-

in this case-

must be underpinned by the rigorous application of the separation of powers doctrine. That doctrine holds that the three arms of government: the legislature; judiciary; and the executive, must be independent from each other and that the powers exercised by each do not come into conflict.

This is not in relation to powers, but I think one could draw a line through this to say that it is clearly wrongheaded to ask an executive to bring forward a process that inevitably has to mean that the government and the administration must work together and put something together as a work of the Assembly. We have a process in this Assembly called the committee structure, and the beauty of that structure is that it allows input from each of the representative groups in the Assembly to put together a collective opinion. Collective opinion from the Assembly is going to be, and will always be, I think, somewhat different from the opinion of the government of the day.

So in that regard it is just not logical to be asking the government to do work which is effectively work that ought be done by committees, or have the benefit-and the benefit at the beginning-of the input of all those people that are in the Assembly and the benefit of their requirement for research, their guidance of how it is done. It is not just a case of saying here that we will set up coconut-shy stuff; we won't do any work; if we do any work we will come in later and criticise it. What you are going to get is a body of work that comes from the government. The government brings forward to this place its policies and its initiatives through its legislation and through its budget process, as it should be.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .