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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 5 Hansard (6 May) . . Page.. 1433 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

We should look at that and look at the visit that Mr Humphries' staff made to the Bender family. We should look quickly at those three incidents. Put them together - and who knows whether there are more? - and we see a series of incidents, a stratagem by the Attorney, to destabilise and interfere with the legal counsel and another party to a coronial inquest. There is a history of behaviours here which illustrates absolutely that the Attorney-General has not been objective; that he has been biased; that he has been prejudiced against another party to this inquest. One must ask why. (Extension of time granted)

We must ask why the Attorney arranged for his staff to visit the Benders. We must ask why those staff suggested to the Benders that Mr Collaery was not a good lawyer. In what way was he not good? Was he incompetent? If that was the suggestion, that is just simply and absolutely disgraceful. For anybody to go to any person party to a proceeding, particularly when one is also a party to that proceeding, and to suggest that that other person's lawyer is not a good lawyer is in itself disgraceful.

Was it the suggestion that he was incompetent? That is disgraceful in itself. Or was the concern that he was too competent? Then one has to ask the question: Would the Government have an interest in destabilising other counsel that they felt were too competent? One then asks: What interest of the Government's was it that those staff were seeking to address, if that was their concern? What was the interest? Were they seeking to pursue a financial interest? Were they seeking to pursue some legal interest? Were they seeking to pursue a political interest? What was the interest that it was sought to pursue in arranging for a member of one's staff to visit a party to a proceeding in which one was also a party - to make suggestions that that other party's counsel was not a good lawyer?

I do not know the answer to that, and it does not really matter that I do not know the answer to that. Not knowing simply does not deflect from the fact that it exhibits, at the best, a perception, if not an actuality, of bias. It exhibits the fact that here we have an Attorney that acted in a way that was contrary to his responsibilities as Attorney-General and first law officer on all occasions to act as Caesar's wife did.

This is a principle that we have had for a couple of millennia. Caesar's wife was aware of the need to be above reproach, to be beyond suspicion. It is a principle that has been around forever, and it applies particularly to an Attorney-General, to a first law officer, and this Attorney-General has failed.

I will conclude, Mr Speaker, by referring to the approach to the Benders. I simply cannot understand what the Attorney could possibly have thought in arranging for these approaches to the Bender family. I simply cannot understand what he thought he was doing. I simply cannot understand how he or his staff thought that that was appropriate behaviour. I simply cannot understand what impact he thought that those visits would have on the Bender family.

I simply reiterate that the behaviour was inappropriate, the visit was wrong and the message delivered was a disgrace and confirms the existence of bias in this Attorney-General towards at least the counsel of another party represented in the implosion inquiry, for reasons that one can only guess at. In guessing at them, one is left

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