Page 2517 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 17 June 2009
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(4) calls on the Chief Minister of the ACT to inform the Prime Minister of Australia and the Minister for Home Affairs of this resolution.”.
It actually takes a different approach—
Mr Corbell: Has that been circulated?
MR SESELJA: Yes, it has been circulated.
Mr Corbell: Not the amendment to my amendment.
MR SESELJA: Yes. Well, I asked for it to be circulated.
Mr Corbell: That is not amending in my motion.
MR SESELJA: I did provide it for circulation, but the one that you have is no different other than the technicalities. All the words are the same. That amendment leaves paragraph (1); it does not seek to substitute paragraph (1) with another paragraph (1). It leaves Ms Hunter’s or, in this case, Mr Corbell’s paragraph (1), and it goes on to note that a number of the provisions in the self-government act are redundant. It actually says that we as an Assembly should make a decision about what we want before we ask the commonwealth to do something. It is a different approach to Ms Hunter’s approach, or the Greens’ approach, which focuses on one aspect, which we do not believe is the appropriate way forward. It is also a different approach to Mr Corbell’s, which still focuses on some aspects but not all of them, but also, before we have even decided what we want as an Assembly, we are actually going to the commonwealth.
I would have thought it is a far more logical way forward for us to say, “Okay, we started from the point of view that we all agree that there should be less commonwealth ability to veto laws and oversight and that the self-government act should be reviewed. After 20 years we should look to move to the next phase of self-government and break some of the shackles.” We have all agreed on that. Should we not actually then agree to what we want from the commonwealth before we ask them to go and change the act?
By proposing the joint ACT-commonwealth review, that does not actually say who would do that. Would that be a committee process? Would members of the Assembly be involved? Would it be simply the ACT government—that is, the ACT Labor Party—talking to the federal Labor government about what we should be doing with self-government? It is a real concern to me that what we will essentially get is a deal stitched up between this government and the federal Labor government. I do not believe that is going to get us to a point where we have something which can be agreed on in the federal parliament or which would be acceptable to members of the Legislative Assembly. This is why I am particularly disappointed that, when we appeared to have agreement after some negotiations before today, we were just left with Mr Corbell’s amendment. I think there are serious—
Mr Corbell: We were waiting for your amendment until 4.30 pm, and we didn’t see it.
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