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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 11 Hansard (26 September) . . Page.. 3440 ..

MS FOLLETT (continuing):

I think I heard both Mrs Carnell and Mr Humphries say that they thought it was a good and healthy thing for people in this Assembly to retain links with the broader community, including links through holding various positions. I know that I have paraphrased what they have said; I hope I have not oversimplified it, but I think it is a fairly accurate paraphrasing.

I want to put it to the Assembly that this is most definitely not the case, and in fact it can be absolutely contrary to both the self-government Act and our Electoral Act. It is the case that any public servant who wishes to stand for election to this Assembly must resign from their position before they take a seat here. That is the law. I do not think it is at all difficult for any of us to understand and appreciate that, say, an ACT public servant could simply not retain their position whilst acting as an elected member of this Assembly, let alone as a Minister. It is a nonsense. Imagine the position where Mr Humphries, as a member of the Government Law Office, retained his position when he became Attorney-General. What nonsense! It is a clear and obvious conflict of interest. You cannot have one rule for one lot of people and other rules for others.

Mrs Carnell: That is working in two jobs.

MS FOLLETT: I will just address that interjection. Mrs Carnell said he would have two jobs. Not necessarily. He could obtain, in theory, leave without pay from his government appointment and hold a seat here, with the right to be reintegrated back into his Public Service position if he ever lost his seat or retired from the Assembly.

Ms McRae: We would have liked that very much.

MS FOLLETT: We would love it. Those of us who were public servants would have killed for that privilege. We do not have that privilege because it is an absolutely clear conflict of interest. I want to go on and refer to an extension of that idea. Imagine the situation had I allowed Mr Berry to retain his position on the executive of the Firefighters Union when he was Minister for Industrial Relations. What would you have said about that? I think you would have said, "That is a clear conflict of interest". That is what I said and that is what Mr Berry agreed with, so he no longer held that position.

Imagine the position where any of us, as Treasurer or as Chief Minister, continued to hold a position in one of the community organisations we funded through the ACT budget. I was in such a position. I regarded it as a clear and obvious conflict of interest for me to continue to hold that position, and I resigned from my community position which I enjoyed enormously and which gave me a great deal of fulfilment. It was useful work for my community, as Mrs Carnell said. It was also a clear and obvious conflict of interest. The matter is not as simplistic as members of the Government have painted it. I will go further and look at the position of our former member, Mr Paul Whalan, who on becoming a backbencher indicated that he would like to take up a position in his community as a consultant and earn some additional money. He was not able to do so. On the best advice we were able to obtain, that was clearly in breach of both the self-government Act and the Electoral Act. Mr Whalan resigned from the Assembly.

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