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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 11 Hansard (26 September) . . Page.. 3439 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

raised in the Assembly, then the person can say to members, "When I considered this issue I went to the commissioner, this was the opinion I relied on, and that is why I have taken the course of action that I have"; or "This is why I rejected it". It then would fall back to relying on our self-government Act and our standing orders, which say that the Assembly is the final arbiter of who has a conflict of interest and who does not.

Those are the sorts of issues that I was most concerned about raising and making sure we could deal with. We are not the only parliament in Australia that is dealing with these issues. Almost all parliaments in Australia at the moment are wrestling with these things, and not only all parliaments in Australia but parliaments right across the Commonwealth. I hope it is one of the issues that will go before the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association when it meets next year and that whoever is our representative there will be able to deal with that issue.

The Administration and Procedure Committee, if we adopt this motion, will not have to go through a whole new discovery process. They can look at what other parliaments have suggested as ways of dealing with this and at the reports that have come out of the UK. There is a wealth of information, but there are still some hard decisions to be made on how we deal with this issue of conflict of interest. It is not only of concern to individual members of parliament to make sure that they do not get themselves involved in conflict of interest situations; it also, and much more importantly, is of concern to the community as a whole that members of parliament not only act in an ethical way but also are seen to act in an ethical way. It does not stop us having our jokes about parliamentary ethics being an oxymoron - the traditional example is British Intelligence, or Army Intelligence.

Putting those jokes aside, there is a very important issue that as much as anything goes to the heart of some of the disenchantment of the general populace with our parliamentary system of recent years. There will always be jokes about parliaments and parliamentary systems, and one of the great joys of having a democratic parliamentary system is that people can make those jokes. There are many countries in which you simply are not allowed to make jokes about your system of governance. We are, and that is part of our freedom. I would like that to continue. I think we would all like it to continue. A careful consideration of this issue by the Administration and Procedure Committee will assist us in ensuring that we have less conflict on the floor of the house on what is and what is not a conflict of interest, what is and what is not ethical conduct on the part of members. I think it is timely for this issue to be referred to the committee.

Motion (by Mr Berry) agreed to, with the concurrence of an absolute majority:

That so much of the standing and temporary orders be suspended as would prevent the mover of the motion from having the right of reply.

MS FOLLETT (11.35): I would like to speak briefly on this matter. I believe that it is an essential issue for the Assembly to come to grips with, and I want to address some of the fairly simplistic views put forward by both Mrs Carnell and Mr Humphries on the issue of what might constitute the legitimate interests of people elected to this Assembly.

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