Page 2518 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 17 June 2009
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MR SESELJA: Well, no, that is not true. Mr Corbell simply circulated this. We originally believed that we had the Greens on board in terms of our approach, and we do believe it is a better approach. We have heard nothing this afternoon. If there was a desire for tripartisan agreement, unfortunately, there was not the will to actually carry that out.
In terms of my amendment, Madam Deputy Speaker, what this would do is allow the committee to look at it. We have seen how the debate has shifted even since Sunday. On Sunday afternoon we had the media calls asking us what we thought about the Greens’ motion, and we saw the front page on Monday. We saw some annoyance, no doubt, from the government that this was their issue and the Greens had taken the running on it—well done to the Greens. But we have already moved. We have seen, in fact, that the Greens have moved a long way from what their original proposal was. We have seen a lot of back and forth as to what is acceptable. In that short space of time where we have seen the situation move, in their haste the government has not even indicated a concern on this.
They pick out particular provisions that they really do not like, but there are clearly provisions that I would have thought everyone would be concerned about, but nothing is said. Perhaps when other members speak again they can say what they actually think of the ability of the Governor-General, basically on a whim, to be able to dissolve this Assembly. There is nothing required other than that, in the opinion of the Governor-General, dismissal is necessary. We have not seen that included in Mr Corbell’s amendment, which goes to the point that it is not comprehensive enough. We cannot just have these negotiations about a motion and put forward our wish list and then just allow this Labor government to negotiate with that Labor government to get an outcome for the people of the ACT.
We should put this to a tripartisan committee of this Assembly and say that this is what we want. I am sure that if we went down that path we would see a lot of agreement. Almost certainly we would agree on issues around section 35(2) and around the dissolution, and we would come up with what are some of the safeguards to put in place to make sure that no party can gerrymander. Instead, what is being proposed, and what appears now is going to go through, is a situation where this Labor government will negotiate with the federal Labor government and we will be delivered a fait accompli. That is not the way forward; that is not the way of bringing this Assembly forward; that is not the way of recognising the will of the people of the ACT, only a third of whom voted for the Labor Party at the last election.
We should not pretend that this is a democratic way forward. The way forward proposed here is that even before the Assembly has expressed a clear view on the detail—what we would like removed, what safeguards we might need to put in place and what other alternative arrangements we might need to put in place—we will send it off for a joint review that will be done by the Labor government here and the Labor government federally. That is why we do not support Mr Corbell’s amendment. That is why I am disappointed that, where we appeared to have agreement, it has broken down. That is where we believe it would be a far better process for the Assembly to determine first what it wants and then put that to the commonwealth. In that situation,
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