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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 11 Hansard (20 October) . . Page.. 3382 ..

MR QUINLAN (continuing):

The point needs to be made that this side of the house has not argued against contributions to charity. What we have argued against, and will continue to argue against, is this prescriptive formula that you wish to impose, in the Treasurer's own words, to relieve you of the burden of paying expenses such as those under the SACS award. In fact, you just want to up the tax.

Mr Humphries: SACS is not our responsibility.

MR QUINLAN: You just said it in your speech, Mr Humphries. This report is disinformation in its structure. It is incomplete. It does not contain any recognition of considerable amounts of money that are invested by clubs into sporting facilities that the community use, from junior sport to sport that is provided for retirees and the elderly. If that be the clubs' fault, we will see whether we can wake them up and say, "Let us in fact get stuck into government and make sure that this report contains the costs associated with maintenance of bowling greens, bocce lanes or whatever else is provided for the membership and goes to the heart of the community".

It is easy to pin your flag specifically to charities, but let us not denigrate the contribution that clubs make. Let us not get involved in this process whereby the Government is releasing information underhandedly to the media with an embargo on it. That is pretty weak.

MS CARNELL (Chief Minister) (3.47): The level of conflict of interest and the level of hypocrisy in that speech were quite stunning. If I got up in this place and gave the sort of passionate speech that Mr Quinlan just gave about how important pharmacy is to the community, which it is, everyone would say, "Kate, just sit down. You have to go. You are too involved. Go away".

Mr Stanhope: Did they donate to the Liberals at the last election? How much did they donate to the last election campaign?

MR SPEAKER: Quiet please. You are not going to silence the Chief Minister by constantly interjecting. You will not be here to do so.

MS CARNELL: The same thing occurs with those opposite. Mr Quinlan has been heavily involved in the Labor Club, to the extent of actually running it for a little while. Those opposite, as you can see from the information we have here, get significant money from the Labor Club, the tradies clubs and others. I can understand why they are embarrassed. A minute ago when I made the comment about pharmacy, Mr Stanhope interjected, "How much money did pharmacy give to your latest election campaign?". Yes, they did. It is all on the public record. That is the reason those opposite would take me on in two minutes if I were to bring forward legislation or oppose approaches with regard to pharmacy. The Pharmacy Guild does contribute. Yes, I do have a pharmacy. It is all on the public record. Those opposite are very good at that. Guess what? The Labor Club gives money to their election campaign, a damn sight more, about 20 times more, than the Pharmacy Guild gives - no, more than that.

Mr Stanhope: Just because we are smarter than you.

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