Page 3422 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 19 September 1990
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would pay off far more than anything in financial terms. It would be much more important and much more beneficial than anything related purely to money. I think that, for a new Assembly, this is a very important matter, and I do not think that he should look at it in simply financial terms. There is no future in that.
Let us look at the way we operate - each of us, as persons - in our party or government or opposition. Let us talk about it, let us talk to the community about it, and let us develop a code of ethics that will enhance the image of this Assembly; but, much more importantly than that, let us see to it that our actions are based on very firm and sound principles.
MR HUMPHRIES (Minister for Health, Education and the Arts) (10.55): Mr Speaker, before I speak to Ms Follett's motion, I would like to seek leave to move the motion that has been circulated in my name, which proposes referring this motion to the Administration and Procedures Committee. I suspect that the best way to deal with that might be to have debate on my motion to refer it to that Committee concurrently with the debate on the motion on the table.
Leave granted.
MR HUMPHRIES: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank the members of the Assembly. Mr Speaker, the motion circulated in my name refers to a referral of this matter to the Administration and Procedures Committee for its consideration and report by not later than 1 November of this year. I think, Mr Speaker, that that is an entirely appropriate course of action.
I feel that the issues raised by Ms Follett are serious ones; that the concerns that she has expressed are ones that ought to be addressed in some fashion. I would not for one moment wish to create the impression that I support a laissez-faire attitude towards moral conduct, at least as far as it impinges on the way in which the work of the Assembly proceeds. But I have this abiding suspicion that this motion has at least as much to do with political point scoring as it has to do with an academic interest on the part of the Opposition in the integrity of government. I see in this motion great slabs of rhetoric which, I believe, will be translated very quickly into press releases that will talk about the lack of integrity on the part of particular members or on the part of this Government. Frankly, I think that whatever sincerity might be behind the notion has been subverted by the very large dose of political point scoring which this measure is obviously meant to further.
Those suspicions are fuelled by the way in which the motion itself has been drafted. The piousness of the motion is a little bit hard to accept. It is not the sort of thing you would want to read first thing in the morning. For example - - -
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