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

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 07 Hansard (Tuesday, 29 June 2004) . . Page.. 2846 ..

May I say in conclusion, Mr Speaker, that I am very pleased—I am delighted, in fact—that our standing orders are being reviewed. I think that that is important. I have already put in one submission and I am seriously considering putting in a second submission on that matter, which I understand is ongoing. I think that it is high time that it was done and I hope that the results will be beneficial to this house.

MR STEFANIAK (10.59): Mr Speaker, I am pleased to see that, as usual, the expenditure for the Legislative Assembly Secretariat is modest. I think that that is what people want to see with the Assembly and what we have always tried to do. However, there are a number of things that we need to look at regarding the Legislative Assembly. If there are capital works that need to be done to make this place more efficient, I think that it would be eminently sensible for that to occur. If it takes a little bit of money to do so, so be it. I think that that is something that this government and future governments need to take into consideration.

Other members have talked about the role of committees. The committees of this place have been particularly effective since the First Assembly. That is because we have always had minority governments, except for the Alliance government, which was a bit of a shemozzle as there were three separate groupings actually forming the government. In reality, it was probably not much different from a minority government. I think that the fact that we have always had minority governments has enabled us to have a very strong committee structure. Indeed, the fact that we have low numbers also ensures that that occurs. So I think that it is important to look at ways in which, if the committees need more resourcing, they can get it.

A number of my colleagues have mentioned the need for the Assembly to have more members. We almost got there on that in this Assembly. We had various recommendations, ranging from having 21 members across three electorates to some ideas about having 23 members and some ideas about having 25 members in five separate electorates. In my view, having been in this place for some time, we will probably end up with having about 25 members, but I think that in the interim there is a demonstrated need for having at least 21 members. In fact, if you compare the population of the ACT in 1989 with what it is now, you have a very strong justification for having at least 21 members. In fact, we are probably closer to having 22 members, but that probably would not be a sensible step to take. I would certainly recommend that action be taken on that in the next Assembly.

Yes, that would increase the costs of the Legislative Assembly Secretariat a bit, but that that would be far outweighed by the fact that we would end up with much better governance. We have seen what happens, as Mr Cornwell rightly says, when someone gets sick. Unfortunately, Mr Corbell is not going to be with us for two months. I wish him well. There are often occasions when people have to go about other urgent business or ministers have to go to meetings and we are down to having, effectively, about 13 people in this house. That, quite clearly, is not a desirable situation, given the fact that we combine local government with state-type government.

It is often difficult to get people to run for a body like this one, although quite a few candidates seem to be putting their hands up for the next election. We are unlike other state parliaments in that we do not have a pension scheme; we have a very basic

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