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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 3 Hansard (9 April) . . Page.. 814 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

What makes you people so envious is that you could not gather a decent group of people around you to support you out there in a club. That is what has upset you most. Who contributes to the 250 Club? What about the Tasmanian companies? What are their interests in the ACT? How do we know the Government has not already made decisions beneficial to members of the 250 Club or to these Tasmanian companies? It is a big secret.

Mrs Carnell: It is no secret.

MR BERRY: I have already mentioned the Advance Bank. The Liberals also received moneys from the ACT clubs industry; so why are they not excluded from the debate? This is just plain hypocrisy and indeed stupidity, Mr Speaker. The notion of conflict of interest is clear. The Liberals are wanting to widen its application and apply it to gaming. You must apply it to all issues before the Assembly. It is just plain stupid. Mrs Carnell interjected that the 250 Club is not secret. I therefore challenge her to give me a list of all the members of it and the amounts of money that they have donated. Michael Moore and Kate Carnell are trying to intimidate Labor MLAs to agree to extend gambling in the ACT, without any social and economic impact study. We are not going to sit back and cop that. Mrs Carnell, this is no more than a cheap political stunt.

Mr Moore has decided to attach himself to the Australian Hotels Association. That is the path he has chosen.

Mr Moore: Not because of the donation, though; not because of the big donation.

MR BERRY: They know you are worth nothing; they would not give you anything, either. You get only what you are worth in this town, Michael. Admitting that you received nothing is an admission of your failure. The fact of the matter is that there is no conflict of interest in relation to this matter. The Labor Party will not be supporting the motion. We will be voting on issues which affect our constituents.

MS TUCKER (5.11): Mr Speaker, the Greens are not prepared to support this motion, because we believe we would really be opening up a can of worms and we do not know where it would end. The issue of conflict of interest is, obviously, very complex. The Liberal Party, apparently, receive huge amounts of money from business. Does this mean we should prevent them from making policy decisions on those issues?

Mrs Carnell: Yes, if it directly affects that business.

MS TUCKER: I am happy to listen to the arguments; but it is not as clear to other people as it is to you, obviously, that, if you have that amount of money coming into your campaign, you are not in some way compromised in your decisions as a government or even as an opposition. If Labor is in government next term and I vote for this motion, would that mean, therefore, that I should also prevent Labor as a government from making decisions about gambling taxes? It could get to the situation where it was totally absurd.

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