Page 2519 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 17 June 2009
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it would be very difficult for the commonwealth to say no, because the Assembly would have come to a view. What we are doing here is a wishy-washy way of doing it. It does allow this government to get its way along with its federal Labor colleagues. We cannot support the amendment as it is, and I commend my amendment to the Assembly.
MS HUNTER (Ginninderra—Parliamentary Convenor, ACT Greens) (5.54): In speaking on the amendment, let me say that I am disappointed that the remonstrance has been rejected by both parties, as it focused specifically on section 35(2) of the ACT self-government act. In the first instance, I would like to read this section. I think in my earlier speech I inadvertently said 34(2), but of course it is 35(2), as the motion makes clear. It reads:
Subject to this section, the Governor-General may, by legislative instrument, disallow an enactment within 6 months after it is made.
I hope that anyone who listened to the speech earlier can adjust the record in their minds, just for the sake of clarity.
I believe that it would have been appropriate for this Assembly to take issue formally and directly with the commonwealth parliament on this point about the undemocratic overriding power that the act gives to the Prime Minister and Governor-General. That was the point of the remonstrance. There may be other avenues to pursue in the future.
Having looked at Mr Corbell’s amendment, which we are going to support, I would have to say that this does broaden out from 35(2). I think there is general agreement in this Assembly that it is undemocratic and does mean that the citizens of the ACT in a sense are second-class citizens who do not enjoy the same sorts of rights as others who live in other parts of Australia—but, of course, here in the ACT, we take on the responsibilities of states. The point was to focus on the fact that this was a critical part of the self-government act that did need to be moved forward. It was one that was touched upon by parties at the 20th anniversary sitting and also, as Mr Seselja has said and as I said earlier, by former Chief Minister Rosemary Follett.
In any event, Mr Corbell’s amendment does introduce proposed terms of reference for a joint government review of the ACT self-government act which the Assembly will ask the Chief Minister to progress. And it does broaden what was in the original motion. When looking at Mr Seselja’s amendment, I note that he is quite concerned that the original motion was quite narrow. He has acknowledged that Mr Corbell’s amendment does broaden out some aspects and he has raised a couple of issues around particularly the powers to dissolve this parliament that he believes could be ones that we would want to look at and that therefore we should be going to a committee here in the Assembly to work through all those matters. But if we are looking at Mr Corbell’s amendment, I think that there is scope within what is proposed there to be looking at a number of matters in the self-government act.
My concern is that, if we had stayed here in the Assembly with a committee that had come up with a proposal to send to the federal government, it would not have had the same sort of impact that work on it with a joint committee between the ACT
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