Point of Order!

The Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory 1974-1994

by Dean Jaensch and Deborah Wade-Marshall

Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory and the North Australia Research Unit, 1994, ISBN 0731520779, black and white photographs, paperback

Very Good Condition, a little edge and shelf wear, a little rubbing and bumping to edges, corners, and covers, no inscriptions, un-creased spine (see photographs)

“This book celebrates the first twenty years of the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory.  The Territory’s first real parliament was inaugurated by the Administrator, and the Minutes of Proceedings record the event.
The following twenty years saw major events, developments and changes.  The grant of self-government in 1978 was a major development, producing a parliament with virtual state-type functions and authority.  General elections reformed the membership of the Assembly.  The government of the Territory remained in the hands of the Country Liberal party over the twenty years, but five different people led CLP governments.  The parliament was fully involved in acting as a Legislature – debating and passing laws to govern the Territory.
The essential theme of this book is to provide a history of the Assembly 1974-94.  It records the obvious components: elections which produced the parliament – the candidates, the results, and the members; the involvement and roles of political parties, in the elections and in the Assembly; the development of executive government – the ministries and the ministers; and, of course, the ‘products’ of the Assembly – the Ordinances (to 1978) and the Acts of the Northern Territory parliament.
A further purpose is to offer the citizens, and the future citizens of the Northern Territory, a means of unpacking the parliamentary politics of the Territory.  Hence, as well as providing a history of the Legislative Assembly, this book outlines the structures and processes of politics, and examines how they should work – what they were designed to be and to do – and how they are actually doing it.  The book is therefore and analysis of the Assembly within the politics of the Northern Territory.”