Page 757 - Week 05 - Thursday, 6 July 1989
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I put to you, Mr Speaker, that the issues I raised with respect to Mr Hedley were indeed proper. They fit the concept which Mr Greiner is developing under his Liberal government in New South Wales and which obviously would not flourish under a Kaine government in the ACT.
It is shameful that good democrats in this chamber would seek to have the Residents Rally turn this chamber into a public hearing concerning named individuals. The fact of the matter is that on the day, or the day after, I made those comments about Mr Hedley in this chamber I had a conversation with Mr Hedley. He said to me, "I will address those concerns. I will be writing a letter. I will be explaining myself". Now, of course, Mr Speaker, the Rally understands like it has never understood before. Mr Hedley had the usual practice of advising his secretary of proposals to develop an office building and the usual practice of advising the secretary of any changes to his financial interests. He does have other financial interests. But he is not on trial here today; that is not the purpose of my discussion.
I am responding, firstly, to the allegation against the Rally that it behaved improperly in bringing to public attention the issues concerning Mr Hedley. I submit that that is an unfounded and a completely absurd suggestion when other assemblies in this democratic world have every right fearlessly to raise those issues. In fact, the Rally's view concerning matters of potential corruption is of course that they should always be dealt with in the proper forum, in the proper place.
To move to Mr Whalan, in question time the Rally asked two questions of Mr Whalan concerning any possible direct contacts he may have had with respect to current developments in the Australian Capital Territory. The Rally, before raising that issue, placed itself in the position to have a statutory declaration from a person, and that declaration goes far further than the innuendo implied, as my colleagues across the house say, in the question. But properly and decently the Rally has not put that allegation. The allegation could have been put in another way to the Chief Minister, to ask her about Australian Labor Party funds. But that has not been pursued, yet. The Rally takes the view that the correct procedures are to await the revelation of party donations out of the Electoral Commission reports, when and if they appear and when and if they are accessible, and then to raise those concerns probably directly to the parties outside this chamber to ensure that those concerns are met.
Given the direct grant which has been given in recent times for Wollongong Constructions, given a situation where the Rally believes that in the next two weeks the athletics track in Bruce may well be pulled up, the Rally sees its function in this Assembly as curtailing and drawing to the attention of the public the unilateralism of this Deputy Chief Minister.
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