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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 12 Hansard (20 November) . . Page.. 3902 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

Mr Speaker, the fact of the matter is that there is nothing of substance that he has pointed to as the basis for this MPI, other than community fears or concerns. I agree that community concerns and fears are a legitimate basis on which to have some concerns, but I happen to take a different view from Mr Wood. My view is that if there is a community concern about a particular issue, if they perceive that there is some problem, my first job as a member of the Assembly, as a responsible elected member of parliament, is to go back to the source of this apparent problem and find out what the facts are.

Mr Berry: Mr Speaker, I would like to raise a point of order. I heard Mr Humphries say that Mr Wood ought to go and get his tablets, or words to that effect. That is a clear imputation against Mr Wood and I would ask that he withdraw that.

MR SPEAKER: I did not hear it, actually.

MR HUMPHRIES: If you want to use that standard, Mr Berry, that is fine by me. If Mr Berry finds that offensive, I withdraw it, Mr Speaker. I am sure he will live by that standard himself in the future, will he not?

Mr Speaker, if there is a problem, you go and find out what the problem is. You go and ask someone, "What exactly are you proposing that is so offensive?". To be quite frank, I think it is lazy political activity, it is laziness on the part of a politician, to hear someone claiming something is the case and simply to parrot that concern without checking to see whether it is well based or it is not. We all have access to information in this place. I am prepared to brief any member on this procedure who wants to know about it. To simply say, "Someone said this is a problem and therefore it is", is lazy, Mr Speaker. It is lazy and it is inappropriate. I think it shows contempt for the processes. All of us should be enlightening the community about what is going on, rather than feeding on community fears and ignorance.

Mr Speaker, the criticisms of these processes, such as they are - I am not really sure what they are - are particularly inappropriate, coming as they do from the mouth of a member of the Labor Party. Remember that the Labor Party's idea of a perfect funding formula was to wheel out a large whiteboard in Parliament House and write down all the funding allocations on the whiteboard. These people using the Ros Kelly whiteboard system are prepared now to complain about a government that goes through a process of greater scrutiny in making grant allocations.

Mr Wood: You really are struggling, Gary. I can see that you got rolled. You are not arguing very well.

MR HUMPHRIES: It was your faction, too, was it not, Mr Wood? Was she not a member of your faction as well? The man from the whiteboard party is saying - - - (Quorum formed) Mr Speaker, I welcome members to the chamber to hear these words of wisdom. The trial, and I emphasise that it is a trial, for the revised administration of funding programs in the ACT is predicated not on a desire to make arts grants less accessible, not to use, for example, the Ros Kelly whiteboard funding approach towards the funding of the arts, which we know is the Labor Party's preferred approach, but rather to increase accountability to the community through a new process.

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