Page 5261 - Week 12 - Thursday, 28 October 2010
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but to exempt six campaigns from the legislation under part 6—exemptions of the act—where the minister may be able to exempt campaigns under extraordinary circumstances.
I would add that all of these campaigns have been assessed by Mr Volker in accordance with the spirit of the legislation prior to being exempt by the Chief Minister. There are also two further campaigns that I am aware of that will require exemption if we do not pass this motion today.
We are serious about fulfilling the obligations to the spirit of this legislation, which is why we have asked Mr Volker to assess each of these campaigns. I am aware of a number of recommendations he has made in changes to those campaigns which have been adopted. But there were a number of campaigns that did require a decision prior to the Assembly being able to resolve this deadlock. These campaigns have crossed ACT Health, LDA, CMD, Actew and DECCEW. There is one more coming from LDA and the Department of the Environment, Climate Change, Energy and Water.
We have sought, with correspondence between the Leader of the Opposition and the Chief Minister, to resolve this issue. The government is quite concerned that the legislation cannot operate as was intended by a vote of this place and that we are in the position of exempting these campaigns.
I wrote to the Leader of the Opposition last Thursday. I provided a list of the other applicants through the expression of interest proposal and I honestly believe that we should abide by the legislation and seek to break this impasse that exists. I think the two appointments are eminently qualified for these positions. The act did not allow for the opposition to select the person they felt most comfortable with. I think the credentials of Mr Volker and Mr Hull speak for themselves and that really we should just get on now and allow the legislation proposed by the Canberra Liberals and passed by this place to operate.
MR SESELJA (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (11.34): The Liberals will not be supporting this motion today. I will go through the process we have reached. I have had discussions with Ms Gallagher this morning; I think that we are at a point where we could find some resolution. That was what I put to Ms Gallagher today during our discussions—that I believe that, through some discussions which have not yet taken place other than a very brief discussion this morning between Ms Gallagher and me, we could come to a resolution in relation to some of our concerns.
It is worth going through the process. What I said to Ms Gallagher today was that if she took the opportunity to actually sit down with us and have a negotiation we would be in a position, I think, to pass this or in one way or another resolve this by the next sitting. Ms Gallagher came and informed me some time later that that would not be the case and that she would push ahead today. I informed her that as a result we would not be supporting it. So before I get into the reasons, I will just say that, as I said to Ms Gallagher when she came and informed me that she would be pushing ahead, I think we can still sit down after this and work it out fairly quickly. But that negotiation needs to take place.
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