Well………parliament is all over for these sittings. So…..a brief summary of my impressions.
The four senior Ministerial collegiate of the incumbent government has really ‘bunkered down’. They fought off several attempts over the past 2 weeks of Opposition and Independent member motions to get them to be transparent, open, honest and ‘up-front’ with Territorians. The backbench and junior Ministers were each very loyal and supportive of their ‘bosses’. Alison Anderson’s attempts to have a committee formed to essentially oversee the expenditure on money allocated expressly for Indigenous housing etc. was voted down around party lines. The Hansard speeches are very passionate around these issues. It seems like a real issue for the indigenous members of the Assembly who are left to struggle with ‘the party position’ versus their own cultural perspectives. Independent member, Gerry Wood, is also committed to the transparency of funding expenditure and is seeking to have it incorporated as part of the Council for Territory Co-operation (CTC).
I’m so glad I’m standing as an Independent in the process of gaining entry into the next Legislative Assembly. I wouldn’t want to be ‘selling my soul’ to the party machine (like Peter Garrett in the Federal sphere). Even when it’s all patently obvious that ‘smoke and mirrors’ are a favoured tactic of both sides, the reality remains that most are more interested in staying in or winning government than they are about delivering open and honest government to the people of the NT.
Despite the ‘emphasis’ of the players, I was impressed by several performances of sitting members, most especially the Independents (Gerry Wood and Alison Anderson), Peter Chandler (CL) and Gerry McCarthy (ALP). The ‘party affiliated’ really do, however, need to spend less time trying to win points against each other and more time on delivering good governance to Territorians. The over-riding of Territory laws by the Federal government around the nuclear waste dump (and moving nuclear waste through the NT) is an issue that will add fuel to the Statehood debate.
More to come over the next several months, I’m sure. This is all a very interesting journey.
