Page 2430 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 22 August 2006
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I believe the ACT prides itself on being at the cutting edge in so many different areas. We say we are the best-educated Australians, the highest percentage of tertiary education, the highest level of education, best paid, and on it goes. It would be terrific if this Assembly were seen as having the best practice, cutting-edge performance of parliaments, not only in Australia but in the region. Because of our size that is not impossible. The resistance to technology that I have heard in discussions in this chamber is unfortunate. Technology we can see here at the Clerk’s table, and which exists in the Senate and elsewhere, would be most advantageous to members. We should be more willing to embrace technology.
It does not necessarily mean that we change how we budget for this place, and I know there will never be a right time. It is like hearing the debate on building on at the Lodge. No Prime Minister is ever game to do it despite the fact that it has probably become inadequate. There is never a right time to increase the budget for the Assembly beyond inflation, or some level below it, but I would love somebody in government to have the courage at some stage to really tackle this as an issue.
This has been a particularly horrendous budget. It is not a good year to say we need to do more, but I believe there is an argument for having a program, even over a number of years, to produce in this Assembly the best environment for elected representatives and their employees using absolute state-of-the-art technology so the job can be done well. I take issue with the fact that members can communicate, depending on how they choose to use their resources. Within the electorate of Molonglo, I do not believe, if I spent the entire DOA, that I could even do one mail-out across the whole of Canberra. I know contractors will give discounted rates, but it has to be recognised that those contractors will not, under their code, deliver to “no junk mail” localities. I do not think what I write is junk mail, but there may be those out there who have that view. Occasionally they write to me and express that view. Australia Post is the only delivery organisation that is able to deliver—and has, I believe, a legal requirement to deliver—to every residence if so contracted to do so. Even on bulk rates it is impossible to cover the whole electorate. If members spend their entire allowance on that, they still would not cover the electorate. They would then have no capacity to make a phone call for 12 months on mobile phones and could not buy a newspaper and the like.
So to do the basics of the job, the money simply is inadequate. As Mr Stefaniak said, I do not think we need to go to the $200,000 a year sort of arrangement that they have on the hill, but keep in mind that Molonglo, where there are, in broad terms, about 100,000 voters, is one of the largest and probably the largest state electorate in the country and as large as almost any federal electorate in Australia. Some might say it has seven members. I would love to believe that dividing the 100,000 by seven limits the amount of constituency matters raised, because that is not the case. It is the old story of the busier you are the more work that comes your way. So there are real issues that have not been tackled. I do not know when the right time is, but this is the one chance a year when we get an opportunity as members to raise factors relating to the way we try to do our jobs. I just add those additional remarks.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (11.52): I can only echo the sentiments expressed by my colleagues, lastly spoken by Mr Mulcahy. There are a number of areas in relation to the provision of services here in the Assembly that are deficient and which should be
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