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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 7 Hansard (19 June) . . Page.. 1895 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

and be considered the same, I do not accept that they are the same. I do not accept that the responsibility was at the same level. That is what always makes these sorts of issues difficult. They are never simple matters of black and white. There is not a simple polarity; there is always a range of areas in between. I believe that a case has not been made to censure either Mr Berry or Mrs Carnell. I shall be voting against the amendment and against the motion.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General) (1.09): I must say that I am disappointed with the position of those on the crossbenches on this matter. The Government moved this motion in the first place - and I make it clear - because what in the past would have been inappropriate to censure someone for, we felt, we ought to censure Mr Berry for on this occasion because of the standards that we saw the Assembly itself set in this matter in recent days. In the past I have made points about how often the Assembly has moved censure motions.

Mr Moore: And the number of times they have been knocked off, too.

MR HUMPHRIES: They have been passed fairly regularly, Mr Speaker.

Mr Moore: They have been knocked off, too.

MR HUMPHRIES: Not as far as the Ministers in this Government are concerned. I cannot recall them having been knocked off very often in this Assembly, under this Government. They have been pretty comfortable and they have always been passed.

Mr Moore: What about in the middle of the union strike?

MR SPEAKER: Order! Mr Humphries has the floor.

MR HUMPHRIES: The point is that we framed this motion to coincide exactly with the standards that the Assembly had set. In the motion on the VMOs in March of this year the Assembly said that, if a Minister presented information which was inaccurate or relied upon such information, that Minister was responsible for having misled the Assembly, even if they did not know what was going on. On that basis, this motion ought to be acceded to.

Ms Tucker made the point that censure motions are being devalued in this place. That may be, but that has already occurred. To decide after two or three successful censure motions against the Government that such motions have gone too far and we should draw the line now, when the Opposition is the subject of a censure motion, is really a bit rich, to be perfectly frank.

Ms Tucker: Mrs Carnell is going to be censured if Mr Berry is.

MR HUMPHRIES: By the Opposition. Mr Speaker, I think that is most unsatisfactory. The kernel of this matter is whose figures were used. The suggestion was made that these are actually Mrs Carnell's figures. They are not Mrs Carnell's figures. Mrs Carnell asked for them and obtained them - - -

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