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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 1 Hansard (20 February) . . Page.. 82 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

So far as I am concerned, Mrs Carnell has made a decision. She says that it was her decision, the leader of the Government's decision, in the first place; but that has been melting a bit, it has been watered down, and it is now a personal decision. But Chief Ministers do not have personal decisions. It is the head of the Government's decision that funding would not be available. Mrs Carnell, if you want to support the team that supports you on this, vote with us. It is as simple as that. We are the ones who support your view. You ought to be supporting us on the basis that this will involve raking over the coals of an earlier issue that was before the Human Rights Office, and I think you ought to be ensuring that we do not do that.

Mr De Domenico, in this case, made his own decisions, knowing full well what the outcomes were. He took advice in relation to the matters, and I expect that in the course of that advice he was told how much it would cost. The Government made a decision not to fund it. The case has gone beyond the first stage. It has now gone to an appeal stage. It is time for the Government to drop off, and it is time for this Assembly to drop off. It is not our issue anymore. It is before other tribunals. If the Government had taken a contrary view and decided to fund Mr De Domenico, we in the Opposition would have been saying, "You ought to fund the complainant as well".

It is an effrontery to ask a committee even to consider an issue in the past. If by chance they were to come up with a recommendation in support of assistance for those proceedings, I think it would be an outrage. I think we should just put it out of our minds. It is not something that we ought to be considering. It would be grossly unfair for us even to consider it, and that is why the amendment has been moved. If the Government wants to fund Mr De Domenico's position, that is a Government decision. So far as the future is concerned, I think it is a wise decision.

I do not think it will be terribly hard to find a set of recommendations which covers these issues. It is not as if it is something that has not already been dealt with. So, good luck to the committee in their deliberation of the matter; but please have a bit of regard for the complainant in this issue, have a bit of regard for the fact that it is before the courts and is still continuing, and make sure that there is no further concern about what this committee or this Assembly might rake over in terms of those earlier proceedings. I think the amendment has to be supported on the basis of natural justice alone.

MS HORODNY (5.12): Mr Speaker, we do not have a problem with this issue going to the committee. We agree that guidelines have to be established for how and when a politician is eligible for financial assistance from the Government. It can be difficult, we agree, to distinguish between a Minister's or a member's personal actions and actions that they take in fulfilling their public duties. It is certainly desirable that some of these issues be cleared up in a committee and that some ground rules be set for the future. We will support Ms Follett's amendment, however, because we believe that it was Mr De Domenico's choice to take on legal representation in a forum where legal representation was not necessary and, in fact, is discouraged. For that reason we will be supporting the amendment. That is all I wish to say.

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