Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 7 Hansard (30 June) . . Page.. 1858 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

illegal. Some further payments were also made at about that time. A payment was made to the Esanda Car Rally by way of assistance from the Racecourse Development Fund, and payments over a number of years of $2,500 each year were also made out of the Racecourse Development Fund and were also illegal.

When I say that they were illegal, that was the opinion of the Auditor-General, who in his Report No. 3 of 1993, entitled "Publicly Unaccountable Government Activities", under the heading "Illegal Payments", said that those payments were illegal and that he found a serious lack of accounting and internal control procedures in the way in which they were made. There had been a number of serious breaches of the provisions of the Act, including in contravention of legal service, and one case had even been referred to the Investigations Unit of the Chief Minister's Department. They were clearly, unequivocally, illegal payments made by the government of the day, by public servants in that government, out of a fund which did not have the authority to have payments made from it.

Who was the Minister at the time? The Minister at the time was Mr Berry, Minister for Sport and Racing. Did he resign? No, of course he did not resign. Did he come back to this place and eat even a little of the humble pie which the Chief Minister has been gorging herself on, in the last few hours? Not so much as a tiny morsel. Yet we are expected to believe that the Australian Labor Party believes in this standard which says that when a Minister breaks the law he or she must resign and that when a Minister's delegates or servants break the law he or she, the Minister, must resign.

Mr Speaker, what does that say about the Labor Party standard? Does it not suggest to you that the standard is being applied most un-uniformly or does not exist at all; that it is a figment of the imagination of those opposite put up in this debate as a tool with which to beat the present Chief Minister and Treasurer, designed to force her out of office? Mr Speaker, in none of those situations I have referred to - the illegal collection of business franchise fees for X-rated videos, the illegal collection of petrol franchise, liquor franchise and tobacco franchise fees or the illegal payments made from the Racecourse Development Fund to a variety of sources - did the Ministers responsible come back to this house and apologise for having made a mistake, much less come back and seek to offer their resignation to the Assembly or to the leader of the day. We have to ask ourselves why we would expect tonight to apply that standard to this Chief Minister and Treasurer, when it has not been applied in the past to Labor Ministers.

Mr Speaker, I do not cite these examples to suggest for one instant that two wrongs make a right. I am not saying, "You broke the law so we are allowed to break the law as well and get away with it". I am not saying that at all. What I am saying is that these illustrations from the past make the point very eloquently that it never was regarded as a hanging offence for a Minister to have a public servant make a mistake and make illegal payments or otherwise break the law under that particular Minister. (Further extension of time granted) It never has been the case that Ministers have had to resign in those circumstances, so why should it be the case now? Why should we accept a standard, a test, which the Labor Party is putting on the floor in this place, a test which we have never seen before today, which as far as we can tell no Westminster parliament

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .