COMMONWEALTH LATIMER HOUSE PRINCIPLES
been adopted in other jurisdictions, past reviews of self government, the body of academic literature on the subject, interviews with representatives of the three arms of government, and the contributions of MLAs in Assembly debates and committee reports. It was encouraging to see that
the review found that “The [A.C.T.] Legislature rates very well against Latimer Principles in terms of its relative independence from the executive, the opportunities for private Members and the concern with enhancing the institution”.5
With a
few minor exceptions, the Legislature does perform remarkably well in this area and operates with a great deal of autonomy vis-à-vis the executive. There is a culture of deference to the Legislature in the A.C.T. and successive executives have not generally attempted to encroach on the operations of the Assembly. We suspect that this cultural acceptance of the separation between the legislative and executive branches derives, in large part, from the prevalence of minority government in the A.C.T. with six of the seven Assemblies having formed minority governments where one of the major parties has relied on the support of crossbench Members to prevail. Our particular Hare Clark electoral system, which entails proportional representation with multimember electorates, preferential voting, the prohibition of “how to vote” cards and rotating candidates names on the ballot papers (Robson rotation), all serve to make the achievement of a majority government (i.e. nine of the 17 Members) a difficult task. The prevalence of minority governments in the A.C.T. has tended to encourage compromise and the diffusion of power. It is also true that the Assembly
provides significant opportunities for non-executive members to participate in proceedings with high levels of engagement within the committee system, and a relatively high number of private members bills being passed. In relation to this first point, Professor Halligan observes that:
“In a Legislature of 17 Members,
the membership of standing committees is likely to be dominated by non-government parties, currently the A.C.T. Greens and the Canberra Liberals (but the A.C.T. Greens also operate under a Parliamentary Agreement with the governing Australian Labor Party). Of the seven Standing Committees all but one have three Members, the remaining committee (Administration and Procedure) has four. In each case there is only one government Member on the committee, which means that non-government parties prevail in terms of membership. “Similarly, the roles of chairs of committees are distributed across the parties, but with one exception are currently held by opposition or cross- bench Members. The A.C.T. has a tradition of using opposition Members in this position. Another example is the Select Committee on Estimates, which has five Members (two from the Opposition, two from the third party, and one from the government), and a non-government Chair.”6 It would be true to say that there
has not been a “winner takes all’ approach adopted throughout the history of self-government. Power has traditionally been shared between members and party groups and the institutional capabilities of the Assembly have thrived as a result. With regard to the second point,
Professor Halligan observes that “in 2009-10, 72 Bills were introduced comprising 55 from the executive [76 per cent] and 17 private Members’ Bills [23 per cent]. This is an unusually high number for an Australian Parliament (or indeed comparable Parliaments overseas). Of those introduced all the executive’s Bills were passed, but 10 [14 per cent] private Members’ Bills were also successful’.7 Both of these measures, taken
together demonstrate that there is a high level of independence and significant opportunities for participation by non-executive Members in the business of the Assembly to an extent not generally observed in other Parliaments.
48 | The Parliamentarian | 2013: Issue One Assembly budget control
An all-party committee of Members of Parliament should review and administer Parliament’s budget which should not be subject to amendment by the executive.
Latimer House Guideline VII (6) In his report, Professor Halligan
notes that “in relation to the key Latimer Principle, that the Legislature should have the power to determine and approve its budget, is not applied in A.C.T.. This question should be reviewed
once the A.C.T. system of government as a whole acquires independent authority over its governance and agreement is reached on a larger Assembly”.8
The Assembly does not
determine the allocation provided to fund its operation and that appears in the annual appropriation Bill tabled in the Assembly. Instead, the traditional practice
has been that the executive determines the funding quantum for the Assembly after having considered a draft budget put by the Speaker and after he or she has sought advice from the Standing Committee on Administration and Procedure. The Assembly as a whole has then been able to support or reject the appropriation. Speaker Berry pointed to the problems inherent in this approach in his paper on the application of the Latimer House principles in relation to the development of the Assembly’s budget, observing that: “the development and implementation of Parliaments’ budgets should not be subject to the vagaries and transient political and policy agenda of a particular government of the day. In order to sustain and nourish the institution’s accountability, legislative and representational functions, an independent budgetary process is required; separate from those which apply to executive government departments and agencies. It is the autonomy of the parliament to decide its affairs that should take precedence over the role of the executive in
developing and framing budgets to deliver on government policy.”9 With the recent passage of the
Legislative Assembly (Office of the Legislative Assembly) Act 2012, two new arrangements have been adopted which give greater effect to the relevant Latimer House guideline.
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