Page 2521 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 17 June 2009
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to be that we are given the responsibility of self-government, we have to enact it and implement it faithfully and we should be able to do so without the interference of the commonwealth, whilst respecting the constitutional nature of the arrangements under which we are established.
That said, the issue for me is that at the end of the day this is not our act. This is not an act of the ACT that we have direct control over. Yes, we should be closely engaged in the development of it. We should be closely consulted and have a very full and meaningful say about what it contains, because it is about our home. But unfortunately, because of the constitutional arrangements, it is not our act. It is the commonwealth parliament’s act and therefore it is the responsibility of the relevant commonwealth minister to be politically responsible for that act. The reality is that you are going to need to deal with the government of the day; that is the reality.
We advanced proposals to try and reform the self-government act when the Liberal Party was in power federally and we are doing it now when the Labor Party is in power federally. We should be under no illusion that, just because there is a Labor government locally and a Labor government nationally, there will be agreement on these matters. You have already seen that there is not. There is not in relation to the civil unions act, for example. But it is not by any means clear cut that there will be agreement between the two governments simply because they are the same political affiliation. In fact, I would perhaps not hesitate to say that it is much more complex than that.
That said, the key issue and the key difference in Mr Seselja’s approach is the suggestion that there be a committee of this place to review the self-government act. As I said in my previous comments, that is simply delaying the main game. The main game is to convince the commonwealth to consider the need for reform and to take steps to implement that reform. That does not mean that the review process between the territory and the commonwealth cannot involve the broader community. Indeed, it must. It should be the approach adopted by both the territory and the commonwealth that there is the opportunity for a wide-ranging discussion amongst the Canberra community about the operations of the self-government act. There should be a process for public submission; there should be a process for hearings by the review body, whoever that is or will be; and there should be the opportunity for broad public debate. There should also be the opportunity for this place to potentially express a view about particular matters, either collectively or individually as parties. It was wrong to suggest that there will not be the opportunity to express a view. There will be; there must be. I have no doubt that that is what will occur.
But our main game has to be to convince the commonwealth to even consider review, to even consider reform. At the moment, we get a bit of lip service but we do not get agreement that it should be reviewed. Without the commonwealth agreeing for it to be reviewed, we are not going to progress the matter. We can inquire all we like down here; it will mean nothing. We must convince the commonwealth that the act must be reviewed. That is where we should focus our efforts. That is why the government will not support Mr Seselja’s motion—because it simply puts off that imperative: the need to convince the commonwealth. It is their act; we need to convince them to review it and to consider changes to it.
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