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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 1 Hansard (20 February) . . Page.. 258 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

engineered to create the maximum insult to local unionists, particularly the ACT Trades and Labour Council. Why do you think that happened? It was because the Trades and Labour Council have been constant critics of Mrs Carnell as well. Everybody gets a serve if they upset Mrs Carnell. In here, if you question anything that goes on in the health portfolio you get a mouthful of abuse.

This Chief Minister has demonstrated that she is not fit to be Chief Minister by her actions in relation to the people I have mentioned today, and I take that back further than those recent events. I go back to those public servants whom Mrs Carnell attacked when she was the Leader of the Opposition or the Opposition spokesperson on health. Mrs Carnell has a long history of attacking public servants, and she ought not to criticise anybody else for those activities. Mr Moore has made some contributions in relation to the claims by Mrs Carnell in respect of public servants, so I will not take the matter any further.

I think what needs to be reiterated and reinforced is that the Assembly will not tolerate constant attacks and abuses of the privilege of this place to defame people in the community. It is quite unfair and unwarranted. If you do not like community activists, do not appoint them to your boards; but, if you do appoint them to your boards, you have to accept that those people represent other community organisations, who expect them to act on their behalf, and they will continue to do so. That is the issue of principle here. You cannot buy people's silence by sticking them on one of your boards, and you should not take vindictive action against people you appoint who act on behalf of the community organisations they represent. That is the issue of principle, and this Government has shown that it does not understand principle at all. Mrs Carnell in particular has demonstrated that she has no principles in relation to this matter. In fact, she will do anything to attack Ms - - -

Mr Humphries: You really hate Mrs Carnell, don't you, Wayne?

MR BERRY: No, I do not. I do not waste my time with hate. I do not waste my time with hatred, Mr Humphries. I leave that to others.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General) (4.45): Mr Speaker, there are a number of issues I want to comment on in the 10 minutes available to me. A very real issue here is the extent to which we operate on a basis of having people involved in community-based organisations and the contribution they make to the bodies on which they are represented. The one criterion I hope we will apply to everybody who chooses to sit on a government advisory body or board or authority, whatever it might be, is that they are there to make a contribution, that they have a contribution to make which is in some way valuable, which gives the Government or the particular statutory authority an insight into the way in which a particular sector of the community might think or a particular perspective on the financial operations of an enterprise or the legal problems associated with particular activities, or whatever it might be?

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