By The Canberra Times
The proposal by the ACT Greens to give control of $71.2 million of the Territory's $356 million city services budget to a panel of unelected citizens was obviously made with the best of intentions.
Party members are concerned about community dissatisfaction with the way in which decisions are being made and money is being spent.
There is no doubt these concerns are genuine. Numerous correspondents to this newspaper have taken issue with the way the ACT has handled the resources at its disposal in recent times.
Issues have included a perception more needs to be done to keep public spaces clean, neat and tidy and that areas such as the East Basin are being developed inappropriately.
This unease led to Greens cross bencher and Parliamentary Planning Committee chair, Caroline Le Couteur, leading the push for a "participatory budget" on the grounds it would restore faith in democracy.
While Ms Le Couteur's motives are good, the logic appears be less than perfect.
If her proposal, to allow a panel of "ordinary people" to have direct control over 20 per cent of the city services budget had been adopted in its entirety it would have resulted in an act of abdication, not enhanced consultation.
Control of the funds would have been transferred from MLAs elected by the people as part of our generally successful and time honoured system of representative democracy to another, as yet unspecified, group.
Unless the members of that body were also selected by an election involving all the eligible voters in the ACT democracy would be weakened, not made stronger.
It would also be possible for MLA's and ministers to wash their hands of some decisions on the grounds they had not had any direct control over them. Everything would hinge on who was choosing the members and how those choices were to be made.
While it is difficult to have too much in the way of consultation it is a fact that under our system of government the final decision making power has always rested in the hands of the elected representatives.
These are the individuals chosen by the people to represent them and make decisions on their behalf. That authority, which comes directly from the ballot box, is not something to be discarded - or even just watered down - lightly in the pursuit of a better public image.
Chief Minister, Andrew Barr, acknowledged this when he amended Ms Le Couteur's motion to strike out the specific amount of money any "citizens panel" could control on Wednesday.
He also said the final say over how funds would be spent would remain vested in the Legislative Assembly and that the City Services Minister would be responsible for any and all of the decisions that were made.
This is as it should be. There is merit in forming advisory bodies to ensure legislators are in touch with community preferences, but ultimate decisions of how public moneys are spent should rest with those elected to do so.