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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 1 Hansard (16 February) . . Page.. 159 ..
MR KAINE: I move:
Omit all words after "Assembly" up to and including the word "meeting", substitute the following words:
"requests the Prime Minister of Australia, Mr John Howard, to explain to the people of Canberra why the decision was made to host the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting at a venue other than Canberra, and to outline the reasons which, in his view, justify that decision".
MS CARNELL (Chief Minister) (11.47): Mr Speaker, the Government will be supporting Mr Kaine's amendment. We will be supporting the amendment not because we are in any way supportive of the Prime Minister's decision - I am sure that everybody in Canberra knows our views on that - but because of the point that many of us have made in this debate about going forward and looking at what it is possible to achieve in the future, rather than playing petty politics. I have to say that I would have accepted the Labor Party's motion until we had the petty politics that were played out on that side of the house in terms of personal criticism.
If this motion had been about the decision not to have CHOGM in Canberra, I have to say that I would have been much more comfortable with it, but it ended up spreading to a wide range of issues surrounding the Federal Government, and there were some pretty ordinary personal comments. I do not believe that it is in the interests of anybody in this place to support that sort of petty politics. On that basis, we will be supporting Mr Kaine's amendment.
MR SPEAKER: I have one small point to do with housekeeping, Mr Kaine. You will need to delete the word "and" at the beginning of Mrs Carnell's amendment.
Mr Kaine: Mr Speaker, as I read it, Mrs Carnell's amendment would flow on from mine, because it includes "and calls on the Prime Minister". I think that it reads straight on from the end of my amendment.
MR SPEAKER: In that order. Right. We will take Mr Kaine's amendment first and add it to the front of Mrs Carnell's amendment.
MR STANHOPE (Leader of the Opposition) (11.49): Just in relation to that, I am quite surprised by Mr Kaine's amendment and his attitude to this matter. I think that he is expressing incredibly naivety in relation to his fond hope that the Prime Minister will now explain to the people of - - -
Mr Kaine: I am a lover, not a fighter.
MR STANHOPE
: So I am discovering, Mr Kaine. I am having some difficulty in responding to you in this new mode. Mr Kaine is incredibly naive if he believes that, after a delay of two months, the Prime Minister will suddenly deign to explain, in a formal sense, to the people of Canberra why the Commonwealth has resiled from the
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