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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 07 Hansard (Tuesday, 29 June 2004) . . Page.. 2848 ..

said that the people here work hard. But I think that some people need to edit what they say when a media person rings up. There is no problem in saying “That bloke works hard and that is fine.” Edit what you say, for heaven’s sake, and do not think that you have to make a disparaging comment just to get a line in a newspaper.

MR PRATT (11.07): I wish also to talk about the paucity of resources in this place. Despite the angle that Mr Wood has on this issue, let me add my voice to the need for more resources for MLAs to be able to better represent their constituents. I am talking about somehow increasing the staff of backbenchers from 1.3 persons each to give them a bit more depth and the capability to better represent their constituents as well as get across the issues in a much more in-depth way. All MLAs are trying to do that, but we have a duty to our constituency to do better than that. I think that one of the areas we must look at fairly urgently is the staff back-up available to MLAs.

MRS CROSS (11.08): Mr Speaker, I honestly believe that the greatest restriction on our capacity to do this job to the best of our ability is the underresourcing of staff in this building. This is particularly the case for crossbench members, where the equivalent of three full time staff members must deal with policy work, legislation, constituents, administration, speech writing, committee work and diary organisation, among a plethora of other duties.

The sheer volume of work required of crossbench members is immense, as we must analyse and work on all pieces of legislation. We do not have the benefit of distributing work via portfolio. This increases the workload of crossbench members and staff many times. Whilst I appreciate the need for a modest Legislative Assembly budget, I think that funding for members’ staff needs to be looked at on an ongoing basis and continually improved. Our staff do a wonderful job, but we need more of them if we are to represent Canberrans to the best of our ability.

I heard one of the opposition members talk about increasing the number of members of this Assembly. I think that that is something that needs to be reviewed. It is a pity, however, that there was a discrepancy in the numbers proposed previously. I think that most of us would have liked to have seen the number of members go to at least 21. The government insisted on 25. The political ramifications of their solution would have been extremely interesting for the Canberra electorate. I believe that that is something that we need to revisit in a more democratic fashion, hopefully after the election and hopefully with a minority government in place.

MR QUINLAN (Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development, Business and Tourism, Minister for Sport, Racing and Gaming, and Acting Minister for Planning) (11.10): I wish to make a couple of brief comments, Mr Speaker. I do not want to speak too long because it looks like it is going to be a long day. I sound a note of warning to members in relation to making assumptions about Mr Corbell’s illness and attributing it directly to the job. Let’s not make assumptions, please. Members may well find that they are making the wrong assumptions.

I note the comments about resources. I do hope that, if ever the resources are increased, we will see a greater depth to debate. I have to say that we have seen in this Assembly a very large layer of repetition on the budget, with an anxiety for all members to speak.

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