Page 2169 - Week 06 - Monday, 11 May 2009
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template for a legislature that combined municipal with state functions. There was no-one we could ask, no-one to whom we could turn. What we had was a piece of legislation that was not even our own, yet which called us into existence. In the words of the then federal territories minister, the Hon Clyde Holding, our birth as a self-governing territory conferred on ACT residents “the same democratic rights and social responsibilities as their fellow Australians”.
Over the past 20 years, we have come to understand that this is not entirely so. And perhaps this anniversary is an opportunity to join with the commonwealth in a review of the self-government act to see whether it serves this community as well as it might, to see whether it is equal to our maturing needs as we hit our 20s and 30s.
This Seventh Assembly, elected in the months leading up to our 20th birthday, has resulted for the first time in a chamber devoid of any of the “original” MLAs from the First Assembly. As recently as last year we did have, from that first intake in those early years, Wayne Berry and Bill Stefaniak. Now there are none. Indeed, with the passage of time, some who have served here have been lost to our community forever: Trevor Kaine, Terry Connolly and Hector Kinloch. Today is a day to remember them.
Like any parliament, ours depends for its smooth running on the expertise, the corporate memory, the hard work and the skill of the Secretariat—the Clerk, his staff and their predecessors in each of the preceding Assemblies. Without their courteous and efficient support of us all, our jobs would be more difficult, our slips more public and our veneer of knowledgeability more quickly rubbed away in the hurly-burly of politics.
We have also, all of us, over the years had the benefit of the counsel and assistance of colleagues from across the parliaments of the Australian federation and their secretariats—and even the help of some from beyond our shores. Our ceremonial mace, symbolic of the authority of the Speaker, was a gift from the regional commonwealth parliaments in 2004.
Despite being the youngest self-governing jurisdiction in the commonwealth, the ACT has made contributions to public policy and legislative history that belie the size and youth of our parliament. There have been contributions that have in some cases led the way in social reform, responded first to environmental challenges, enshrined rights and elevated the vulnerable into our sights.
We have enacted significant pieces of legislation that have had resonance beyond our borders and allowed us to play a leadership role in areas such as the protection of human rights, the decriminalisation of abortion, responsiveness to terrorism and the conferring of equal rights on gays and lesbians.
We have never taken what we do for granted or assumed that our methods are the best possible. We have refined our voting system more than once. At the 10-year mark, the Pettit review into the governance of the ACT led to reforms that have added further to the distinctiveness of our body politic, including the introduction of fixed four-year terms. That review highlighted other matters that continue to generate debate in the community—matters that go to our relationship with the commonwealth and the basis and extent of our self-determination. Perhaps now, another decade on from the Pettit
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