Page 1947 - Week 06 - Thursday, 2 May 1991
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Mr Moore: Nobody suggested that.
MR JENSEN: Or inability to operate independently in the committee. There can be no reason why I should not continue my operation, if you clearly acknowledge that I am not operating with any bias as a member of the Executive, which clearly I am not.
MR BERRY (3.59): Dealing with what Mr Jensen has said, firstly, I think that what he said reaches new heights of contempt for true comparisons, particularly when he referred to the Brisbane City Council. The Brisbane City Council is nothing like what occurs in the ACT. There are no Ministers in the Brisbane City Council, and of course it does not have Executive Deputies, as we have in the ACT, with strong links to the Executive.
Mr Jensen: They have executive committees, though.
MR BERRY: Mr Jensen interjects that they have executive committees. There is no way that you can compare the Brisbane City Council with the Government of the Australian Capital Territory. Again Mr Jensen has missed the point completely. The point is the public perception of bias in the chairs of committees - a bias towards the government position. This is clearly closely linked to the Executive.
Mr Jensen: It is only flagged by your beat-ups.
MR BERRY: No, they are closely linked, and it has been agreed by many. He has missed the point completely. He agrees that there are issues of conflict of interest which should be avoided when one is involved, as a member of this Assembly, in the workings of the Assembly. He would not get himself involved in discussion of the rezoning of schools because, he said, there might be a conflict of interest because it could come before his committee. I have to say that there are big gaps between the occasions when Mr Jensen gets it right, but on that occasion he got it right.
Members interjected.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, members! Let us keep the chatter down to a fairly dull roar. Mr Berry, continue.
MR BERRY: He got it right that time, but that is the only time he got it right. He has not got it right in the debate here today. I think he knows, in his conscience, that there is a clear conflict of interest between his position of Executive Deputy and that of chairperson of a committee.
Another completely disappointing contribution to the debate here today was that which came from Mr Humphries. I say that in the knowledge that Mr Humphries is trained in the law, and he refuses to accept that very, very strong history of case law about bias - - -
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