Page 2456 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 6 August 1991
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The Aidex outrage is simply a knee-jerk reaction by the ACT Labor Party and the peaceniks who happen to find a home in that organisation. They are finding, I think, fewer and fewer opportunities to rally against their ideological enemies - capitalism, the military, the United States, the Western alliance and so on - so they find expression here in the ACT by banning this trade. I will not feel very happy when that trade moves out and goes to another Australian city, as I am certain it will. I certainly will not know what to say to those businesses that have lost out. I will feel, I think, a little bit of chagrin at the fact that the ACT's reputation will have been compromised and that the reputation of the ACT Government and Assembly as a joke government and a joke parliament will have been reinforced by the stupid, petty and irrelevant decision that has been made by this Government today.
MR MOORE (8.53): Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, in my study of ethics, in Ethics 1 in the first year, we tried to determine just what morality was. I have heard a series of definitions about morality today and very few of them seem to come to grips with the basic concept of morality - what one ought or ought not do. It is a very simple concept, and it has nothing to do with money. What has happened in this Assembly today, I think, is very clear. The Liberals have a very strong view that money should rule over it. Of course, there is some duplicity in this approach that money should dictate morality.
I have heard a cross-section of this Assembly speak on this issue and take the rational and logical view that we do not want to be part of an international arms trade involved in death and destruction, and for that reason I will shortly seek leave of the Assembly to move a motion that I would like circulated at this stage. That motion reads:
That this Assembly endorses the principle that the ACT should not be used for promoting the international arms trade.
I think it is appropriate that we have a motion. Mr Stefaniak has raised the issue as a matter of public importance, and it is a matter of public importance. It is incumbent upon us, therefore, to take a stance as an Assembly and indicate to the people of Australia, and Canberra, just where we stand on this vile industry - because it is nothing other than a vile industry.
Let me move back to morality, because there is a great irony in dealing with morality. We have had quite a number of calls in my office over the last couple of days from people who oppose X-rated movies. They oppose what they see as some sexual immorality going on. We have had a quite large number of those calls. I have asked the staff in my office to ask each individual, as they call, what their stance would be on Aidex. Interestingly enough, we get a very strange duplicity in the morality of these people, and it is the same duplicity that we get in the morality of the Liberal Party.
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