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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 5 Hansard (6 May) . . Page.. 1581 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

bring Mr Collaery into this matter. We did not even seek to raise the matter. I knew nothing about it until Mr Kaine decided to reveal private correspondence that could only have come from the Law Society or Mr Collaery's office. It did not come from this side of the house.

Then we had these speeches tonight about how we denigrate Mr Stanhope and how we attack the leadership of Mr Stanhope. It is a shame that there is nothing to attack. There is nothing there. There is nothing of substance. What do they stand for? What have they said today? Absolutely nothing. We then had the debate on the budget and all of them stood and poked holes but none of them offered a single solution, none of them offered any hope. There is no hope within the leadership of the Labor Party and there is no hope in what we have been offered today.

It is very important that oppositions be constructive and that oppositions work for the good of the people. Oppositions should not oppose just for opposition's sake. But that is all that we have from them; they stand for nothing.

MR SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired.

MR MOORE (Minister for Health and Community Care) (11.22): Mr Speaker, I have to disagree with my colleague Mr Smyth on one small matter. He suggested that the Opposition had achieved nothing today. I think that that is not quite right, because Wayne Berry stood here and said that Mr Humphries was tainted. Yes, I think that in this sense Mr Berry is right; I think there was some taint put on Mr Humphries today. If that was the aim of the exercise, then I think that there was some success in that. I think that that is really sad, Mr Speaker, because the taint was gained through personal attack, through using a statutory declaration, through using a series of accusations, letters and personal correspondence that simply provided no evidence whatsoever. The taint started in this morning's paper when Mr Stanhope did an attack on Mr Humphries without him having an opportunity to respond in any meaningful way.

Mr Smyth: The great civil libertarian.

MR MOORE: In a great civil libertarian way. And they come into this chamber, Mr Speaker, and stand here tonight as hypocrites. Each and every one of them who spoke here did it with a huge amount of hypocrisy. As they did that, Mr Speaker, they said that the trouble with Mrs Carnell is that she launches personal attacks. I ask you, Mr Speaker: Is there an example of hypocrisy that would compare with that? They deliberately set out to taint Mr Humphries. They had no evidence, but they still went ahead and did it. What actually horrified me the most was the response of Ms Tucker because, as far as I am concerned, today she reached an all-time low. She is so ready to ensure that anyone in this Government is removed so that she can have her Labor government in that she is prepared to go along with anything. Today's effort from Ms Tucker was just appalling.

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