Page 2529 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 17 June 2009

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Question so resolved in the negative.

Question put:

That Mr Corbell’s amendment be agreed to.

The Assembly voted—

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

MR SPEAKER: The question is that the motion, as amended, be agreed to.

MS HUNTER (Ginninderra—Parliamentary Convenor, ACT Greens) (6.36): I think it is a good way forward for the ACT to have a review of the self-government act, one that is overdue after 20 years of self-government. We have heard a number of arguments and, I guess, agreement from all parties in the house around some of the matters that need to be reviewed and in fact some of the matters that should be changed in the self-government act. We have heard that it is an act of the commonwealth and therefore we need to be engaging with the commonwealth parliament in order to ensure that they understand the issues that are at stake and the needs of the ACT in regard to review and reform of this matter.

On Sunday I went out with this matter publicly. I clearly stated that I was looking forward to discussions with both the Labor Party and the Liberal Party. I was quite open to their suggestions or discussions and any ideas which they wanted to include. We undertook that process. We have been undertaking that process in the last couple of days. Mr Seselja has said that he is quite unhappy because he believed there was an agreement. That is not the understanding of my office. The understanding of my office is that there was a proposal put on the table as to what may be the way forward and there needed to be further discussion. Mr Seselja’s office was informed this morning that we would not be going along with that proposal. We were looking at a proposal for amendments that was being put forward by the government and we felt that may be the way that we would go. I think Mr Corbell has spoken of a meeting at lunchtime between the parties on this matter.

It is important to get some momentum behind this issue. I believe that having a joint ACT-commonwealth review is the way to do that. I believe that that review should be inclusive. It needs to call for submissions and have engagement from the citizens of the ACT, political parties and other people who see themselves as stakeholders. Mrs Dunne raised the matter of some money that may be available through the justice and community safety department. That may well be able to be used to ensure that

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