Page 2683 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 25 August 1993
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Mrs Carnell: You mean that it just turned up?
MR CONNOLLY: If you can show to me a finding by the royal commission that Mr Wright knew that this money was tainted, you have a case - - -
Mrs Carnell: No; you do not have to, to be a bagman.
MR CONNOLLY: "No, we do not need it, to be a bagman", says Mrs Carnell. You are such a grub that you cannot even stop using these terms. Again, if Mr De Domenico, when he was engaging in commerce, sold an insurance policy to a person who used stolen money to purchase that policy from a company, Mr De Domenico could be said to have been a conduit for stolen property between the thief and the insurance company that issued the contract. But of course that would be nonsense. There would be no adverse finding against a person who simply took a sum of money and on-passed it and used it for a particular purpose. Unless you can show us an adverse finding that Mr Wright was involved or knew of the inappropriate use of the No. 1 account, you have no case. Your case against Mr Wright is cheap and shabby, and you should be ashamed of yourselves.
MRS CARNELL (Leader of the Opposition) (3.43): Madam Speaker, the whole basis of this censure motion seems to revolve around the use of the word "bagman" and possibly the use of the words "unfavourable mention" - not "decision", not that Mr Wright was found guilty of anything, but received unfavourable mention. A bagman is, to use the dictionary - which we did check beforehand, but I just wanted to get the words exactly right - an agent who distributes money for illicit purposes. It is also a commercial traveller, a tramp - - -
Mr Connolly: Yes, illicit purposes.
MRS CARNELL: Okay; illicit purposes. If you wanted to read the next paragraph, the one after the one that everybody is speaking about, it said:
It is clear that the work carried out by Mrs Brush did not justify a figure even remotely approaching $80,000. Mrs Brush received $55,000 -
and so on it goes. If you read the whole transcript before you moved motions, it would be a very sensible approach. What it goes on to show is that what actually happened was that Mr Burke paid Mrs Brush, his secretary - or supposedly his secretary - for work that was not carried out. It goes on - and this is what the royal commission found, not what we found:
We are satisfied it was paid in advance because both Mrs Brush and her husband were unemployed and were in difficult financial circumstances. Mr Burke's defence of the payments was unconvincing -
and so on. We have to remember that - - -
Mr Connolly: Where does it make a finding about Mr Wright?
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