Page 464 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 8 March 2011
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It is evident in their statements. It really comes to the point that it appears as though the Canberra Liberals and their colleagues on the hill think less of this parliament than they do of every state parliament in Australia. The obvious question is why. I think every Canberran should ask the Canberra Liberals why all their colleagues in the states are better than them and why it is that they do not want to represent Canberrans on the same range of issues that members of state parliaments represent their residents on.
Mr Smyth: Bob didn’t feel that way about—
MS HUNTER: They are getting very touchy on this. Why do they want to be subject to the whim of politicians from other states? Why do they not want members of an institution to have the final say in what is in the best interests of the people of Canberra? This is not the spirit of the constitution. Constitutional cases do ensure a range of protections and limitations to ensure the parliaments are truly representative of the people. It shows that this parliament should enjoy the same level of responsibility and quality of democracy as enjoyed in other states.
That, as I said, is really at the heart of the legislation that Bob Brown has tabled in federal parliament. I very much support Mr Stanhope’s motion today. I think that it is trying to clearly put forward a view from this parliament that we do not believe that the people we represent should be treated in a shoddy manner, in a second-class way, that they should be able to enjoy those same democratic rights. I would very much like to hear answers to the questions I raised about where do the Canberra Liberals stand on this? Do they really think that this place is not as good as other parliaments? Do they really think that the people of the ACT are second-class citizens who should not enjoy the same democratic rights? You need to clearly answer those questions.
It was quite interesting when this issue did break last week. I was talking to one of the local media people who was saying that the phones were ringing hot and people were white hot with anger on this issue. The people of Canberra were very angry that this would not be supported by politicians up in federal parliament who live many thousands of kilometres away from the ACT and yet who believe that they should be the ones who have the say on the laws of the territory. We cannot allow this to continue. It is a ridiculous situation. Therefore, I am fully supportive of Senator Brown’s bill.
I will address the issues. Yes, there are a number of other areas of the self-government act we would like to see changed. Cast your mind back to 2009 when I did bring a motion into this place. That was around calling on the federal parliament to look at the self-government act and to review it. Guess what? There are many people up in federal parliament who, unfortunately, simply do not care about the ACT.
I have asked on a number of occasions and been given an update by the Chief Minister on his efforts to engage with the federal parliament to try and move this issue along. I do hope that that will be successful, because there are areas that need to be addressed. The Chief Minister has touched on one of those this morning, which is around the size of this Assembly. It is ridiculous. We have had self-government for
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