Chief Minister to get more fire power?

Wednesday 12 March 2014

Plans to give the Chief Minister the power to sack under performing ministers, and make the Council of Ministers toe a party line, are being discussed today.

Chief Minister Ian Gorst is taking the proposals to the Council of Ministers ahead of lodging a formal proposition for debate before the election. The work was meant to be done by the Privileges and Procedures Committee but they have handed it off to the Chief Minister.

The idea of the reforms is to strengthen the powers of the Chief Minister, and to ensure that the Council of Ministers will be bound by collective responsibility – essentially requiring them to sign up to all support each others’ policies.

Senator Gorst says that they will also be considering ways to make the Scrutiny system more flexible.

At the moment, the Chief Minister is technically in charge of the Council of Ministers but cannot hire or fire ministers, and cannot tell them what to do.

“I will be lodging a proposition in the name of the Chief Minister,” said Senator Gorst.

“This is something that I feel strongly about. This is about changing the system so that we can work more effectively on behalf of the community.”

Senator Gorst said that he wanted to wait and see what the States did with the proposals before taking any further steps on electoral reform. Plans to change the make-up of the 12 Constables, ten Senators and 29 Deputies that sit in the States were rejected last year after an Electoral Commission and a referendum tried to find a way forward.

Senator Gorst has suggested in the past that a completely independent Royal Commission could be established to take over the issue, because the States have been trying to sort it out for more than a decade with no results.