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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 5 Hansard (6 May) . . Page.. 1445 ..

Mr Berry: In writing?

MR HUMPHRIES: Yes, in writing, Mr Berry. Three were as a result of constituents bringing matters to my attention about lawyers, and we chose to make those complaints, and two as a result of self-initiated matters, both of which involve in some way the actions of the Government or one of its agencies; in other words, matters in which the Government is involved.

Mr Stanhope: A party?

MR HUMPHRIES: Potentially, yes. Mr Speaker, I can describe one of those in some small amount of detail. I have raised a matter concerning lawyers who were involved in the matter of Mr and Mrs Jadric, who, members will recall, had lost their home because of the enforcement of a judgment in the Supreme Court, a matter in which the Government was very intimately involved and which I have had a continuing involvement in dealing with certain solicitors. The matter is still the subject of intense correspondence between me and the Law Society. I have not singled out Mr Collaery for this particular treatment. In fact, I have been very careful to take into account Mr Collaery's previous relationship with members of this place and me, as a member of a government in which we both served, in considering matters that have been raised in connection with Mr Collaery and I have been careful to act accordingly. Mr Speaker, the suggestion that we have targeted Mr Collaery in some way through this is just extraordinary.

The suggestion has also been made, as a basis for this motion of no confidence, that we have timed this exercise in order to get Mr Collaery at a crucial stage of the inquest. Mr Speaker, the inquest has been running for a year-and-a-half and issues concerning it have been going on for almost two years - two years come 13 July this year. I suspect that had I made a complaint at any stage in the course of that two years or any stage at least since the inquest itself actually began - 18 months or so ago, as my recollection serves me - there would be the basis for a claim that I intervened to get Mr Collaery, who no doubt would claim that some crucial stage of the inquest was under way on which he was distracted by virtue of my making a complaint about him. Mr Speaker, it has more to do with Mr Collaery's imagination than it does with any reality.

Mr Speaker, the other point that needs to be made here in this respect - the suggestion that there is a connection with the Government trying to get Mr Collaery in this matter - goes to the substance of what Mr Collaery actually alleged. The substance of his claims was that the Government's reforms to criminal injuries compensation - and this is virtually what he said in the media - were designed to deprive the Benders of their entitlements to make a claim under the Criminal Injuries Compensation Act. Why the Government would be involved in a reform involving millions of dollars for the sake of saving $50,000, which is the maximum payment that could be made in this matter in any case, is an absolute and utter mystery.

But there is another devastating piece of information in respect of that matter which Mr Collaery and the detractors opposite have forgotten. Mr Speaker, here is the discussion paper I put out launching the Government's reforms to criminal injuries

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