Page 666 - Week 02 - Thursday, 20 March 2014
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The timing therefore recognises that the committee should report by the last day of June. This is not a sitting day. I anticipate that at a future sitting of the Assembly it may be the case that the select committee will seek authorisation to circulate its report and table out of session. I will leave that decision, I think properly, to the select committee to itself determine.
I would like to thank all of the parties for their engagement in the preparation of these terms of reference. I thank them for their input. I am pleased that we have a consensus position on the conduct of this select committee. I commend the motion to the house.
MR HANSON (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (4.29): I can indicate that the opposition will be supporting today’s motion. I thank Mr Corbell for bringing it before us. I would also acknowledge that this is something that has been agreed to by the three parties. I think it is important that it be a select committee, or certainly a committee where the Greens are represented. I have had some conversations with Mr Rattenbury in that regard.
As Mr Corbell has identified, the government has proposed on a number of occasions that this Assembly increase in size. As a result of the reference group’s paper, the government has essentially locked their decision into that being an expansion to 25 members spread across five electorates. This matter was considered by the Liberal Party at a policy convention on 12 March. The decision of the Liberal Party at that stage was that the parliamentary party would then work towards that end, noting that there are still, I guess, a number of outstanding questions and bodies of work that need to be completed. That is what today in some sense is about.
For this to proceed, we want to make sure that we get it right. This is an opportunity that will probably come very infrequently to this Assembly. In fact, this will be the first change in its size and structure since its establishment nearly 25 years ago. So there will be a lot of issues to look at, and a review of the Electoral Act and relevant matters is appropriate.
The time line that has been proposed by the government is one that we support. There is a balance here between making sure that the Assembly does consider the issues, that the committee has sufficient time to look at this and that the Assembly, when it then essentially has these matters presented to it in June, has enough time through the winter recess and through the estimates process to look at this in some detail before essentially debating what is put before us in August.
That is a deliberative process, but it is one that we need to get on with because there are some obvious actions that will then need to be taken in terms of the response by the Electoral Commissioner, redistribution of electorates and so on. It is in the community’s interest and certainly the good operation of this place that some of that action is taken quickly so that decisions can be made and people are aware of what the Assembly is going to look like, what the electorates are going to look like, sooner rather than later.
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