Page 2172 - Week 06 - Monday, 11 May 2009
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There is no doubt that it was a rocky start. There was the bizarre situation that a sizeable portion of the First Assembly of self-government was made up of no-self-government parties, who realised with a shock that a protest vote could end up with not only a seat at the table but in some cases a place in the ministry as well. This is fairly extraordinary and of course we know that some of the options in the early days included candidates from the Party! Party! Party! Party, the Sun Ripened Warm Tomato Party and, of course, the Surprise Party. Their particular platform was never particularly clearly enunciated; presumably we would have found out what it was if they had ever gained office. There was, as is well recorded, a raft of the various no-self-government parties, several of whom actually did gain office on the platform of not having an office to gain.
We remember when the ballot papers were longer than some members, whether sitting or standing. This extraordinary event led some to think that the modified d’Hondt system would have been better called the “don’t” system, and I shudder to think what those with the modern sensitivity to recycling paper would have thought of the acres of paper required to print ballot papers that were over a metre long—another sign that times change and we change with the times.
There was also a very volatile era, after the initial flurry and fury had settled down, when the beginnings of a genuinely workable, democratic Assembly began to take shape. I use those words advisedly because for those who were part of those times I am sure they felt like anything but settled. Ms Follett, for example, had two terms as Chief Minister in that first term of government; there were three governments in three years; and the list of opposition leaders shows just how tenuous that position can be. In the 20 years of self-government there have been 16 changes to the position of Leader of the Opposition.
Personally, I was pleased when I got through my first six hours, knowing that I would not be the shortest ever serving opposition leader in the history of the ACT. That honour, of course, is held by Craig Duby, who found himself recorded as Leader of the Opposition for one day, 21 June 1991. This, of course, is not a fault of or slight on Mr Duby but a sign of the turbulent times I was speaking of earlier.
We had to find our way through the eddies of electoral options until we settled on the Hare-Clark system which we now use. In the last 10 years or so, the system has settled down to become a genuinely responsive and responsible seat of government as the people of Canberra realise the role the Assembly plays, which leads me to the second part of the motion.
The Legislative Assembly of the ACT has a unique set of responsibilities and a unique structure within which it enacts those responsibilities. We are a unicameral parliament; we have no upper house to check, scrutinise or reject. For a population our size, this is appropriate. Even for larger jurisdictions, their upper houses can be so removed from either the day-to-day lives of the citizens of their state or the management of the business of parliament or the executive government that many people in those states do not even know that they have upper houses in their state legislatures. However, it does place a particular responsibility on those 17 of us who sit in this chamber. We must be our own watchdogs, our own guardians.
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