Page 482 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 8 March 2011
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But what we have here today is the Labor Party and the Greens empowering that piecemeal approach by saying that it is all right for Bob Brown’s bill to succeed because it is only a small step. The people of the ACT, after 22 years of self-government, do not need a small step. We need an appropriate review. Mr Hawke says that in his review. The Chief Minister recognises it and Mr Rattenbury recognises it. Even Ms Hunter recognises that.
The only people who have consistently spoken in favour of a comprehensive review of the self-government act are the Canberra Liberals. Mr Seselja in his address at the seminar to mark the 20th anniversary of self-government spoke at length about those needs and the sorts of things that we should look at. We have consistently in this place, when this matter has been brought up, spoken about the things that we think we need to look at and about the need for the people of the ACT to be involved in that decision making. The Attorney-General touched on it. The people of the ACT had self-government foisted upon them. There is general agreement that this was not the best way to go. Why should we continue that form of behaviour with this?
What we are calling for, what Mr Seselja has consistently called for and what this amendment calls for today is that there should be a comprehensive review of the constitution of the ACT in concert with this Assembly and the people that we represent. What is the harm in that? The harm, it seems to me, Mr Speaker, is that the Labor Party and the Greens are afraid of it. The Labor Party and the Greens want to have their little, insignificant but ideologically-driven amendment.
It is quite interesting that the Chief Minister spent five minutes or so saying that it was not about gay marriage and it was not about euthanasia. It is not about euthanasia. There is another piece of legislation to address that issue. But it is quite comprehensively the case because, when the issue first arose last week, Mr Stanhope and Ms Hunter were in the media so fast your eyes would bleed. They were saying, collectively, that the issue of civil unions in the ACT was unfinished business and as soon as this legislation passed they would be back doing it.
Mr Stanhope here today says it is not about that, but last week he was saying it was about that. If we were concerned, not about the narrow sectional interest but about the wider constitutional reform that is necessary in the ACT, we would support Mr Seselja’s amendment. But we are not interested in that. We are interested in, as Mr Seselja said at the outset, the Greens’ tail wagging the dog. The Greens want this and the Labor Party is saying, “Yes, master, yes, yes, yes. We’ll be doing it.”
This is what the Greens want and it is not necessarily in the interests of the people of the ACT. If they were interested in sticking up for the people of Canberra, they would be voting for Mr Seselja’s amendment. They would be drawing to the attention of the committee inquiring into this the need for a much more fundamental and systematic reform of the self-government act. They would be saying, “We don’t want a piecemeal approach to reform of the self-government act.”
The problem is that if this bill passes, the senators will think it is all done. The members of the federal parliament will think that they have reformed the ACT self-
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