Page 3384 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 18 September 1990
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The statements made, I think in the debate last Thursday, were roundly refuted by Mr Connolly and need no further expansion. The simple fact is that Mr Connolly - - -
Mr Stevenson: What about some evidence? We are not talking about facts when you talk.
MR DUBY: I heard the comment from Mr Stevenson: "We are not talking about facts". I have enough faith in Mr Connolly to believe him when he tells me that the man who wrote this comment is not a professor of law or whatever; he is a fraud and a charlatan. And he is. If he does not like it, let him do what needs to be done; let him produce the letters of law that are required.
In the year and a half that we have been in this Assembly, frankly, I have come to respect the views of Mr Stevenson and I would like to put that on the record. I respect your views in the sense that they are your views. In most cases I do not agree with them. In 99.9 per cent of cases I do not agree with them. But I respect your views because I have found, over the period that we have been in this Assembly, that you have aired those views, and you have aired them with distinction.
The point remains, though, that in many cases your views are simply unacceptable to me and to other people in this Assembly, and to a lot of people in the broad community. Undoubtedly, there are people in the community who share your views, and I guess that is what democracy is all about. I repeat that I respect your views, and I want to make that quite clear. Some people have suggested that there is animosity, or that Mr Stevenson and I do not get on well together. We do. We get on very well together on a personal basis. We just do not happen to share the same views on a whole range of issues. That, in my view, has nothing to do with the way that we deal with each other on a personal and a professional basis.
However, in this regard, Mr Stevenson, I share the views expressed by the shadow Attorney-General - I have no doubt that those views would be endorsed by the Attorney-General of the ACT Government - that the comments made by the gentleman you claim to represent are clearly beyond the pale and unacceptable. Frankly, in a lot of ways they just do not make sense.
I shall sit down and leave it at that. Mr Speaker, the Government endorses the views in this case, and in this case only, of the shadow Attorney-General. Mr Stevenson, you are on your own.
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