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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 5 Hansard (5 May) . . Page.. 1347 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

The point is that the mere fact that the Government has breached a provision of the law does not prove that the Government has acted in any way that was wrong. The laws of this Territory, as members can see by looking in front of them here, fill volume after volume after volume of statute books. The idea that governments will always comply with every provision in those laws at every time is nonsense. No government ever does. How many volumes are there? Can you count them for me, Chief Minister? It is nonsense to expect that any government could comply with all those provisions at the one time. Of course, they cannot. The question is: What is the nature of the breach.

Ms Carnell: There are about 34.

MR HUMPHRIES: Thirty-four volumes of legislation stand in front of us in this place, on the table in front of the members of this place. That is just principal legislation. Subordinate legislation would fill at least that much space again.

I make a concession for the sake of this debate. I do not concede it at all before the advice is back. It is quite one thing to argue that there has been a breach of legislation. It is another to argue that it is a matter for which the Government is responsible in a culpable sense. As I said, the former Labor Government collected hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue illegally because the franchise legislation was found subsequently to be invalid. That Government did not offer to resign at the time - - -

Ms Carnell: Or even give the money back.

MR HUMPHRIES: Or even give the money back, for that matter. It kept all the money that it collected. The question here is: What has the Government done wrong? There is a technical breach - potentially, at the best, in this particular case - of a piece of legislation, if that is the advice that comes back to government.

The practice used by the Government to make these sorts of financial transactions is not unethical; it is not improper; it is not unusual. Members in this debate have confused the complexity of the financial arrangements with some kind of attempt either to get around the law or to avoid public scrutiny and accountability. Neither of those things is true. The arrangements being used here are complex, yes, but they are ethical and they are legal. I put to one side the question of the exact provisions of the Financial Management Act, but in terms of dealing with financial institutions, in terms of borrowing, in terms of construction of the components of the dealing, they are complex but they are not illegal and they are not unethical.

Most especially, they are not designed to avoid proper scrutiny. That scrutiny has already occurred extensively in the course of this process. We have seen the Auditor-General's scrutiny of them and we have seen the public accounts committee, the Chief Minister's Portfolio Committee, scrutiny of them. Neither of those bodies has made any adverse comment on that process so far. Mr Speaker, this is an important point. I hope members are listening to this particular point. Wayne Berry, in particular, I hope, is listening to this, because he was a person who has some responsibility to bear in this particular matter. I think Mr Berry ought to listen to this, because I am about to make allegations about him.

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