Senate debates Bills

Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Amendment (Disallowance and Amendment Power of the Commonwealth) Bill 2010; Second Reading


Gary Humphries

Gary Humphries ACT, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Materiel

10:07 am

Yes, Mr Deputy President. Let us not be holier than thou. When it suited your purposes you were quite prepared to use this power in this way. This is a process bill. It is about how decisions are made affecting the powers of territories. It is not a substantive bill about those powers, and those issues do need to be addressed and in other ways they will be addressed. I would prefer that they were addressed through a comprehensive review of the status of self-government, not through some piecemeal approach. That is the appropriate way to deal with this. I represent the ACT. I understand what I think the people of this territory aspire to and want. I do not think they want the institution of self-government to be toyed with by federal politicians. They want these issues to be dealt with systematically and comprehensively. I believe the citizens of this territory would welcome an opportunity to engage in a full, comprehensive consult­ative process to examine the status of self-government here. That is the better approach, not the approach inherent in this very piecemeal piece of legislation.

Comments

No comments