Thank you, Mr. Speaker-elect. The consensus system is about more than just one individual. Decisions are made collectively and reflect the will of the Assembly and Cabinet.
As a Premier, my goal is to provide leadership to implement the decisions we have taken collectively. I'm not interested in simply giving direction.
A review on consensus government I believe is long overdue. I think that we have to move away from hearing about the faults of consensus government only once every four years. I think that we have to be prepared to listen to the people and find out exactly what their concerns about consensus government are and find ways to fix it.
I'm prepared to have the Minister responsible for transparency and democratic engagement and have him or her begin work on an open government that could include looking at and reviewing consensus government and fulfil public expectations about what consensus government should be all about. I would ask the new Minister to prepare and table a work plan in the Assembly in the New Year.
Also, we have other bodies that could do work in this area. We have the Electoral Boundaries Commission that does work in this regard. But certainly if Members feel that consensus government is not working properly, we have to find a way to fix it, to make it work better, and a review would certainly be one way to do it, and I would support that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker-elect.