Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Materiel) Share this | Hansard source

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.