Page 1725 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 29 May 1990
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I should have spoken up. I believe that we should look at whether we do something from a political point of view or out of a standard and a higher cause. I believe that if there were someone in my party in a similar position I would expect him or her to resign a ministerial position, to say the least. I think that should hold with us all.
I have heard statements from members of the Alliance suggesting that it is perfectly acceptable for Mr Duby to remain a Minister even though he has been convicted of the two offences. I really find it difficult to imagine them not saying what we are saying on this side of the house if the circumstance were different.
Mr Duby is in a different position with his offence because he is the Minister responsible for matters of transport, driving, et cetera. At the very least, he should relinquish that position. There really is no doubt about that. If this censure motion is lost tonight, it will be lost not because it was not just but because numbers count and justice does not.
MR DUBY (Minister for Finance and Urban Services) (9.00): Mr Speaker, I have listened to many people talk tonight on this matter of undoubtedly great concern to me, namely, a motion censuring me and calling upon me to resign as Minister. Many people have spoken on many points. Originally I was not going to speak to this motion. I was going to let the debate to-and-fro and let the vote be taken. However, some comments have been made which I feel have to be answered - in particular, comments from the other side that keep drawing upon a number of issues.
One of the major issues that we keep hearing is that I should resign because of the public perception - the people out there want me to resign. The basis of this apparently is an editorial which was in the Canberra Times, I believe, last Saturday. The basis of that editorial, Mr Speaker, was identified, and I think it was one of the major thrusts of Ms Follett's speech. It was that, in my capacity as Minister responsible for, in this case, the allocation of taxi plates, I had refused to provide a man with a set of taxi plates because of a drink-driving conviction that he had incurred in 1983.
Once and for all, Mr Speaker, I want to set the record straight on this matter. Not only is that incorrect but also Ms Follett knows that it is incorrect. I can understand well the editorial writer of the Canberra Times not knowing the facts and going off half-cocked on the basis of what someone had told him. But Ms Follett, of all people, knows that simply is not true. The situation is that in 1986 the then Minister for Territories, Mr Scholes, decided to release concessional licences or, shall I say, taxi plates to what might be termed "senior drivers" who were in the ACT taxi trade.
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