Page 5624 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 17 November 2010
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(2) supports the formation of a broad public consultation forum to discuss and debate changes requested to the Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Act 1988 as raised by the Assembly, the community and other stakeholders and develop a formalised agreed position to present to the Federal Parliament; and
(3) calls on the Government to investigate the timing and provision of a public forum on these reforms and report to the Assembly with options.”.
This is not the first time a motion of this sort has come before the Assembly and this is not the first time that there has been some level of agreement between all parties that the time is right to consider these questions. This is also not the first time that the discussion has exposed differences in approach to the details of those changes, and those details must be explored and reconciled before we commit to the momentous changes in our system of governance.
In June last year, the Canberra Liberals made comments on a very similar matter in a motion brought forward by Ms Hunter. Some of the issues that we raised then were the ability of the Governor-General to step in and dismiss the Assembly when the Governor-General deemed, in his or her opinion, that the Assembly was either incapable of effectively performing its functions or was conducting its affairs in a grossly improper manner, the override powers of legislation that can be dismissed on ministerial direction and the need to review issues around the ability of the Assembly to determine its size.
However, at that time we also talked about how, in any move to allow the Assembly this freedom and to remove any of these provisions in the self-government act, we needed to make sure that we got the checks and balances right. We must remember all the questions that arise when we remove one provision of our constitution.
Being a unicameral parliament, who keeps a majority government in check? If the Assembly can change its numbers and make-up, what stops majority government doing it to its own advantage? If we do not have a Governor-General, who can dismiss an unworkable parliament? Who does? Does Senator Brown want to substitute himself for our Governor-General? What would happen if the elected body in the ACT decided to build a large dam? I am not sure Bob Brown would be quite so keen to demand territory rights in that case. He was pretty keen to curtail states’ rights in Tasmania when they wanted to build a dam.
If we remove these particular sections, do we need an administrator in the ACT, as exists in the Northern Territory? Even these simple examples show that changing these systems raises other important issues which we must discuss before we proceed. We have struggled with motions such as this one because they are too limited in scope, too isolated in consideration and too lacking in detail. They propose solutions when the problems have not been isolated or even properly defined.
The last time we looked at this issue, the debate was focused on section 53, as does the current bill before the federal Senate. Obviously, the Canberra Liberals believe that this is too limited. This time the scope has been broadened but has only picked up
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