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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 5 Hansard (6 May) . . Page.. 1478 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

a principle, the Liberal Party has always been against retrospectivity. We stand by that. It is only with the gravest of concerns that we would consider introducing something that puts retrospectivity into place.

The people affected by this retrospectivity in this case are the OH&S inspectors, the workers, Mr Speaker. It is quite sad. It is quite appalling. Ms Tucker said that doctors should not offer advice to other doctors in the field. If you go to a specialist you get a second opinion. I would be surprised if people did not ask who was another doctor they could see. Certainly, on occasions, I have, and if you were talking to a specialist in a field you would ask who his peers were. That would be sensible, Mr Speaker. There is no sense in this debate simply because this debate should not be going on today.

This is a smokescreen motion of no confidence. This motion of no confidence clearly defines that Mr Stanhope and his Labor colleagues stand for nothing except political opportunism. Several speakers from the Opposition have had the opportunity today to outline where Mr Humphries has fallen down in his responsibilities. Mr Humphries had a concern. He followed the process. He took that concern to the responsible body, the Law Society. He did not issue a media release. He did not do interviews on 2CN. He did not put it into the Canberra Times. He did not break the process. He left it to the Law Society because that is how they do it. Mr Humphries does not have the letter from the Law Society. Mr Humphries could not have made this public. There are only two places were this information could have come from, and that is from the office of the Law Society or the office of Bernard Collaery. The reason we are having this debate today is that there are people in this place who would rather attack the Government on small issues instead of getting on with the job of making Canberra the sort of place that we all want it to be and that we all want to live in. (Further extension of time granted)

Mr Speaker, what have we heard today? We have heard that they are not happy with the process. Where is the evidence? Mr Berry waves his Canberra Times article at me. What have we heard? We have not heard new evidence. What we have had here today, Mr Speaker, is an opportunity to talk about responsibility. Responsibility is being able to be called to account. Responsibility is being morally accountable for your actions. Mr Stanhope is morally accountable for what he did today because he raised the motion of no confidence in the Attorney-General. Mr Stanhope will be judged by what he did.

What did happen, Mr Speaker? What happened is that we have had judgment by the media. This was launched in the media in a very cheap and sad attack on people who had no defence. They woke up to read about this in the paper this morning. What we have had here is the callous reopening of old wounds by people who have no regard for what is happening here, absolutely no regard. It is just a cheap shot at the government. You have to ask: Why the cheap shot? Why the cheap shot today of all days? Why the cheap shot today on the day that the Opposition is absolutely guaranteed a front page, or should be guaranteed if there was some substance in their response to the budget?

I put it to you, Mr Speaker, that the reason we have this motion of no confidence today is that Mr Stanhope stands for nothing. The Labor Party stands for nothing in this regard. They will not make any announcements or pronouncements - - -

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