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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 11 Hansard (26 September) . . Page.. 3432 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

under the previous Government, although Mr Berry said there was a code of conduct, it was secret. I cannot quite understand how you can have a code of conduct that you do not make public, but the previous Government did it.

Mr Berry: Try to defend yourself.

MRS CARNELL: I thought this was a motion about a code of conduct, but if Mr Berry would like it to be something else, and he has already spoken in a very different light, we are happy to play that game too. A code of conduct is a very appropriate thing. This particular Government, as I said, produced one immediately on coming to government and made the document public. We published it so that everybody could see it. We believe that it is a very appropriate document, but we are also very happy to support an approach that would have a code of conduct for all members of this place. That is not a problem at all.

Mr Berry used a large amount of his speech to attack me. It appears that, for Mr Berry, this debate is not about a code of conduct for members of this place. He has been in this Assembly since 1989 and could have done it at any time during that period, but he has picked budget week. For the life of me, I cannot understand why anybody would do that, unless this was straight-out personal attack stuff. Mr Berry is on about this because he has not managed to make a dint in the Government in any other way. When you have failed in every other capacity, what do you do? You go for the man, not the ball, and that is exactly what Mr Berry has done here. What we should be debating this week is such things as the direction of the Assembly, the direction of Canberra, the budget. A $1.3 billion budget was brought down this week, with enormous ramifications, as all budgets have, for all parts of the community. But no, Mr Berry - - -

Mr Berry: Mr Speaker, on a point of order: Relevance. I would ask the Chief Minister to defend herself and not worry about the budget.

MR SPEAKER: I will not ask the Chief Minister to defend herself. As I pointed out to you before, any imputations under standing order 55 about individuals are totally out of order. The Chief Minister does not have to defend herself on anything.

Mr Berry: Mr Speaker, might I add that, if we wish to go into a budget debate in relation to this motion, I am quite happy to do that. I hope you will cooperate with my addressing the budget issue later.

MR SPEAKER: I have no doubt that the budget issue will be debated later this day. There is no point of order.

MRS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, I think many people who were in the last Assembly will remember that we debated the conflict of interest issue then, and guess what happened. Wayne Berry was put straight back in his box. The last Assembly determined that there was no conflict of interest on such things as the methadone legislation. He has already brought it up, and it was ruled out categorically, except that in his speech today he negated the point that the Assembly as a whole determined that that simply was not the case.

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