Page 1152 - Week 04 - Thursday, 21 April 1994
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
anybody who has said to me, "I would have stood for election to the Assembly last time around, except that there was no public funding available". I doubt whether anybody here can honestly claim that anybody has said that to them. So it is not true to say, as Mr Moore said, that perhaps there are people who would have stood had they had public funding available. I do not believe that that is the fact at all.
The second thing that the Labor Party would have to demonstrate is that you would get a better class of candidate for this place by virtue of having public funds. The only way you can prove that, I suppose, is by comparing the qualifications and the quality of the people that are in this place now with those in the New South Wales Parliament. I do not think we can compare ourselves with the Federal Parliament; but if you can demonstrate that, as a result of the last two elections in the ACT and New South Wales, New South Wales has a better class of member because they have public funding, that would be a compelling argument. I do not think that either of those arguments has even been put forward by the Labor Party to contend that public funding is justified.
It is my view that, if somebody wants to represent this community and to sit in this house, they have to put themselves forward as a candidate and justify themselves. How they do that is their business. I do not believe that we ought to be saying, "If there are a few people out there who want to put their names forward to stand for election, we will provide the funding for them to do it". That is the wrong sort of incentive. What we should be doing is saying to them, "If you want to come into this place, it is a hard slog. You have to put yourself before the public and justify yourself, demonstrate that you are capable of doing the job, and then get in here and do it". That is a different thing altogether.
I find it very difficult to accept the argument that public funding should be provided. At the moment, and I do not suppose that it will ever be any different, the Territory is short of money. We complain about the amount of money returned to us by way of tax from the Commonwealth. We go through the agony every year - the Chief Minister has done it for the last three, and I am sure that she is doing it again - of how to raise enough revenue to fund the ongoing operations of health and education, and all the other things. How can we justify in the eyes of the community making $170,000, or whatever the end sum is going to be, available to get ourselves re-elected? I do not believe that there is any justification at all for it. You cannot go to the community and say, "This is something that we can justify", because there simply is no justification for it. I, for one, would be quite happy to see some of that $170,000 given to the Council on the Ageing to allow them to do their job properly. I am sure that there are many other worthy organisations in this city who would use $170,000 a lot better than we can use it in getting ourselves re-elected. That is the simple fact of the matter.
The Government, first of all, has not attempted to justify public funding. It just puts it into the Bill as though it somehow justifies itself. It does not. There has been no argument from the Government that really justifies it. Mr Moore did his best, but I submit that even he is probably only half convinced that he is justified in seeking public money to get himself re-elected. My view is quite strong and unqualified. There is no justification whatsoever for it. The provisions in this Bill that provide for public funding of people to get themselves re-elected should be removed.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .