Page 460 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 8 March 2011
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
that the part?—or is it the part that says we should have a broader review? I have heard it said over these last few days as we have been hearing about this that it is about democracy. Why would you not then talk to the community about it?
We have a situation where the people of the ACT were asked whether they wanted self-government. They said no. They got self-government. We have self-government now. With the next step in changes to the self-government act, would it not be reasonable that we listened to the community, that we actually went out and consulted?
Mr Hanson: They might not say what the Labor Party and the Greens want to hear, Mr Seselja.
MR SESELJA: They may well, but let us have the conversation. Let us not focus on one narrow issue. Let us go for a broader review. Why is it that the Greens do not want that? I think that is pretty clear. They want the right to still intervene when it suits them. They want the ability to intervene. This will come up again. In new suburbs there will be controversial roads in future. Bob Brown and the Greens want to say to the people of Canberra, “No, you can’t have that road.” They want to have that right; they want to have that ability. They want to take that right away from the elected parliament here in the ACT. They are, therefore, guilty of hypocrisy.
My amendment is about saying that we as a parliament are ready to take the next step. We believe that the federal parliament should look broadly at all of the issues that affect the ACT and its ability to govern itself. In doing so, it should consult with the community and it should listen to the community. It should make sure that it takes on board those views and gets a robust change so that we are not coming back in six months, 12 months, 18 months or five years time and having the same debate.
It appears to me that that is exactly what the Labor Party would want—anything to distract from their record as a government, anything to distract from their record of service delivery for the people of the ACT. Let us get it right. Let us have the review and let us take the community with us. We will get significant changes and changes that will benefit the people of the ACT for many years to come. I commend my amendment to the Assembly.
MS HUNTER (Ginninderra—Parliamentary Convenor, ACT Greens) (11.06): This debate goes right to the core of democracy in the ACT. It is one of the most fundamental debates we can have in this place about the legislature of the ACT and therefore about the effective governance of the territory. Ordinarily, we all come to this chamber to put our respective views on a particular issue or concern that one of us has identified and that we think something should be done about. Sometimes we all agree and change the laws that govern us or we give effect to some other course of action that we think will remedy the concern.
Sometimes we do not agree; so we take a different path to achieve the outcome that the majority can agree upon. All the time, of course, we are giving effect to what we believe in and what we think the people who voted for us would want us to do. However, today with an even greater imperative than ever before, we are considering
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video