Page 4062 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 17 November 2015
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alone has also recognised that the time of their meetings may not necessarily work very well, particularly for working families and for men and women with young children. They have since changed their starting time from 7.30 to 6.30.
I am not sure from my attendance at those meetings since that change that it has necessarily increased the take-up of people attending the meetings. I think there is more that we can do to encourage women and younger people in particular to engage more broadly in our consultation processes.
I commend very much Minister Mick Gentleman for his recent broad, extensive and personally engaged work on the statement of planning intent released earlier this week. It would also be worth while considering how else we engage, for example, with people with a disability, people from a variety of multicultural backgrounds and our Indigenous community in the broader consultation process. My observation of community council meetings is that these groups in our community are not necessarily well reflected in the attendance at those meetings.
I certainly know the position for me. I have been going regularly to the Gungahlin Community Council for many years now. But certainly leaving home at 7 o’clock, right at the end of dinner, leaving your husband to put the kids to bed is not always the ideal time to go. People have very busy lives and more often than not it is a fact that our community councils quite rightly have a number of very committed people who may be semi-retired or retired who do have the time to contribute.
I am very proud of the work that they do. I pay particular tribute to recent presidents of the Gungahlin Community Council, Alan Kerlin, Ewan Brown and more recently Peter Elford, who has been the vice-president there for many years and who has just stepped up into the president’s role. They certainly do raise a lot of issues and deal with a wide range of input coming to them as well. Without this work we would be denied an important community engagement tool.
Discussion concluded.
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Before I call the Clerk, Mr Doszpot raised a point of order during the MPI debate regarding his assertion that he had risen before Mr Rattenbury. I draw members’ attention to page 161 of the Companion to the Standing Orders, where it is stated:
Members wishing to speak must rise and address the Speaker from the place allocated to them in the Chamber; should two or more Members rise, the Speaker must call upon the Member who, in his or her opinion, rose first. However, the Speaker may have regard to the alternation of the call.
In this case, Mr Rattenbury from the crossbench was the next alternate for the call.
Statute Law Amendment Bill 2015 (No 2)
Debate resumed from 29 October 2015, on motion by Mr Corbell:
That this bill be agreed to in principle.
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