Page 3575 - Week 08 - Friday, 24 August 2012
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members. Based on the relative representation of their members, if we were to apply that to the Legislative Assembly of the ACT, we would have 2,100 members of the ACT Assembly. I make the point that there is some danger in comparing ourselves to other jurisdictions when determining our size and whether we want to be bigger or smaller.
We need to consider the size that is appropriate to the ACT for the good functioning of the ACT and not try to look at other jurisdictions necessarily as a guide, because each jurisdiction is unique in the way they operate and the way they have developed historically. There are historical anomalies with our federal constitution where states of different sizes, for example, have the same number of representatives in the Senate. That is not based on the proportional representation of the population.
The second recommendation that is worthy of note is one that I dissented from—that is, recommendation 5—which recommends the removal of subsections 23(1)(a) and 23(1)(b). Broadly these deal with euthanasia. This is a philosophical difference I have with the other members of the committee and comes to the issue of how much power the Legislative Assembly should have in setting a precedent in establishing laws which have ramifications and consequences for all Australians. It is certainly true that we should have broad powers to legislate for our own citizens, but when that then engages all other citizens of Australia in such a way that it cannot be viewed in isolation I think it is appropriate that we have restrictions on our ability to do so.
It must be recognised that we are a very small jurisdiction, and in terms of checks and balances we have the least compared to all the other states and territories. We do not have a governor or an administrator; we do not have an upper house; laws can be made with a simple majority of nine people, which is a very small number. My rationale for dissenting from recommendation 5 is based very strongly on the view that, although we want powers to legislate for the people that we represent in the ACT, some logical restrictions are needed when such laws cannot be isolated simply to the people of the ACT and would have national ramifications. It would be more appropriate that they be dealt with, in my view, at a federal level.
I thank members of the committee for their engagement. I note this is probably the last time I will be speaking to any matter of substance in the Assembly, and I thank the members of the committee for their participation in this committee.
MS BRESNAN (Brindabella) (11.40): I will speak briefly to the report. As other members have, I thank the committee members—the Speaker, Mr Rattenbury, and Mr Hanson and Ms Porter—for working on this report. I endorse all of the comments Mr Rattenbury has already made about the report and its findings. It is worth noting that this was a very thorough process. As Mr Rattenbury has already outlined, the committee received a number of submissions at hearings, including the first Twitter hearing, which was a very interesting process. That is something worth considering for future committees. I also acknowledge the range of expertise that has been pulled together in this report, including evidence from former members Bill Stefaniak and Greg Cornwell. Their experience in terms of being long-term members of this Assembly in the past was very valuable.
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