COMMONWEALTH LATIMER HOUSE PRINCIPLES
Table 1 - Elected members at each level of government Commonwealth
State/Territory
House Senate of Reps
NSW 49 VIC
37
QLD 29 WA 15 SA 11 TAS 5 A.C.T. 2 NT 2
TOTAL 150
12 12 12 12 12 12 2 2
76
Lower House
93 88 89 59 47 25 17 25
443
Upper House
42 40 0
36 22 15 0 0
155
1,518 1,714 4,552,976 631 808 3,506,844 553 683 2,684,538 1,278 1,400 1,341,005 715 807 1,099,031 281 338 356,203 0
21 148 177
242,842 118,401
5,124 5,948 13,901,840
1:2,656 1:4,340 1:3,931 1:958
1:1,362 1:1,053 1:11,564 1:669
1:2,337
1:2,754 1:4,620 1:4,181 1:977
1:1,402 1:1,110
1:14,285 1:685
1:2,429
Local Total Enrolment Gov reps at
30/06/2010
Ratio all levels of
Government
Ratio local and state
Government
Legislatures and the second, the Commonwealth (Latimer) House Principles on the Three Branches of Government themselves.2 These documents both articulate a strikingly similar set of foundations for maintaining and strengthening the democratic parliamentary form of government, including the importance of maintaining institutional checks and balances and the criticality of the doctrine of the separation of powers. Speaker Berry’s papers in many
ways provided the impetus for a broader discussion about how the institutional integrity of the legislature could be assured. We started to see in the A.C.T. – amongst MLAs, public servants, academics and interested members of the community – an authentic conversation about what arrangements should apply so far as: the Assembly’s budget was concerned, the role of the A.C.T. public service in the affairs of the Legislative Assembly Secretariat; the administrative and legislative protections that might be adopted to enhance the independence of the legislative branch and so on.
Following the 2008 election there was an opportunity to place the Latimer House principles at the front and centre the legislature’s thinking in these matters. In negotiating a parliamentary agreement with the A.C.T. Greens (who then held the balance of power in the Assembly), the government agreed that it would be appropriate to give greater prominence to the principles and indeed to adopt them as a yardstick for measuring the adequacy or otherwise of the form of democracy we practice in the territory. On 11 December 2008, the
Attorney General, Mr Simon Corbell, moved a resolution in the Assembly calling for the endorsement and adoption of the principles. The resolution was passed with unanimous support in the Assembly. The Legislative Assembly for the
A.C.T. is the first and only jurisdiction of which we are aware that has formally adopted the Latimer House principles. In its resolution of continuing effect, the Assembly acknowledged that “the principles express the fundamental values they believe should govern
the relationship between the three branches of government in the Australian Capital Territory”.3 The resolution was later amended,
following a report on the Latimer House Principles by the Standing Committee on Administration and Procedure, to provide that a comprehensive review of A.C.T. governance was to be undertaken once in the life of each Assembly (once every four years) to assess implementation of the principles. The resolution requires that reviews are to be conducted by a suitably qualified person appointed by the Speaker. The resolution requires that
the report on the review is to be tabled in the Assembly and referred to the Standing Committee on Administration and Procedure for its inquiry and report. The first of these reviews was conducted in the latter part of 2011 by John Halligan, Professor of Public Administration at the University of Canberra’s Faculty of Business and Government. In this paper, we will briefly address four areas considered by Professor Halligan in his review
– the Assembly’s budget control, its committee system, the need for more members, and the sovereignty of the Legislature vis-à-vis the Commonwealth.
The review The current Speaker, Mr Shane Rattenbury, MLA, appointed Professor John Halligan to conduct the review of the implementation of the Latimer House principles in the first part of 2011. Professor Halligan was a good fit for the review task given his longstanding interest in A.C.T. self-government. As Research Professor
of Government and Public Administration, Faculty of Business and Government at the university, Professor Halligan has conducted extensive research in relation to comparative public management and governance, public sector reform, performance management and government institutions.4
His
review was informed by the Latimer House principles themselves, statistics relating to the business of the Assembly, the practices that have
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