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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 5 Hansard (6 May) . . Page.. 1580 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

know that because on a day when he had the ultimate in free kicks, 34 minutes in which to respond, we saw nothing. They revealed nothing; there was nothing to reveal. The other day Mr Moore quoted the T.S. Eliot poem that I enjoy so much:

What we have heard tonight, these explanations in the adjournment debate, are the last whimpers of a leadership and the last whimpers of a Labor Party that stand for nothing.

This morning what did we see? We saw a motion of want of confidence - the most serious of motions that can be raised in this place - based on a private matter that was being dealt with through the proper procedure by the Law Society. Who made it public? Mr Kaine. Who wheeled the wheelbarrow? Mr Berry. Who was the dupe that stood up and moved the motion? Mr Stanhope. Mr Berry accused a Liberal Party staffer of putting up some sort of poster in the Labor Party area. Perhaps they should look to some of the junior staffers in their own ranks who are absolutely appalled at and disgusted with the way that the Labor Party is behaving and its lack of a stance on anything. They stand for nothing.

Today we had a censure motion that was to reveal inadequacies in the Attorney-General and a lack of responsibility. Responsibility is about judgment and about leadership. It is about making a point and it is about showing the community that you care. We had nothing but gratuitous words from Mr Stanhope when he started: Labor had got the message, Labor was going to change, Labor was going to work cooperatively. We have seen none of that in this place since that day. Mr Speaker, it is about time they stood up and said what they stand for. They stand for nothing. They say, "We go out into the community and the community say that they are disappointed with the Liberal Party because it does not do anything, it does not stand for anything". I am not sure where they go. Had they bothered, like Mr Quinlan did, to go and listen to the Chief Minister's speech yesterday morning, they would have seen 500 representatives of the community saying that we had got it right on the budget.

We stand for something. We stand for sound financial management, sustainable financial management, so that we can deliver a sustainable social Canberra and we can deliver a sustainable environmental Canberra. We are working towards aims that we enunciate clearly, that we live by and that we will deliver. They stand for nothing. Events today prove that. We had this amazing motion of want of confidence based on a private matter that was being dealt with by the Law Society. We were then accused of denigrating Mr Collaery in this place. We did not denigrate him. We did not seek to

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