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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (10 July) . . Page.. 2390 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

for such crass political return and purposes, that you would willingly run it as an election issue, that you would seek to divide the electorate through an issue such as this in an election campaign, and that you would use this issue to drive a wedge between sectors and sections of the community. It is outrageous that you would demean yourself to that extent and allow an issue as difficult as this one to be at the forefront of your campaign for re-election at the next election.

I leave my contribution to this debate with the thought that nobody should be under any misapprehension about the long-term impact or effect of this amendment. If this amendment succeeds today, there will be no injecting place trial in the ACT. This is not about an adjournment of the trial; it will be the death knell for the trial. Of course, there are some here who would applaud that. But Mr Moore needs to understand and the less conservative and more open members of the Liberal Party, if there is such a thing, need to acknowledge that this means the end of the trial.

There will be no resuscitation. There will be no way for this Assembly to breathe life back into the injecting place trial if it is put off for 18 months. It might as well be for ever as the world will change, the world will move on, and our approach to these issues will change over that period. We will have the New South Wales and Victorian trials, jurisdictions that have the courage of their conviction, a courage to pursue and continue with this initiative. We, of course, will be in a position where we will have to rely on the analysis or the assessment of those trials before we move down this path ourselves.

Members need to understand that this is not just an aberration, a glitch or a hiccup in the move towards having an injecting place trial in the ACT. The passage of this amendment will spell the end for an injecting place in the ACT; that is what it will do.

Ms Carnell: You have said that 14 times.

MR STANHOPE: I am not sure that Mr Moore understand that. I am not sure that Mr Smyth or you, Chief Minister, understand that. We can repeat your attitudes of six months ago and can all bend our minds to work out when you were telling the truth, then or now.

Mr Humphries: Mr Deputy Speaker, that is clearly a reflection on Mrs Carnell and contrary to standing orders and it should be withdrawn.

MR STANHOPE: Actually, I spoke quickly. I meant no reflection. I withdraw that.

MS CARNELL (Chief Minister) (11.36): Mr Deputy Speaker, I am very interested in a number of things that have been said today. You really would have to ask yourself what Mr Stanhope was talking about. There is one really easy question: why are we here today? This was not a scheduled sitting day. It was not a day that was on the annual program. We are here for one reason and one reason only-because those opposite oppose the budget. It is that simple, Mr Deputy Speaker.

If those opposite had taken the same approach that we did in opposition, the budget would have gone through. It's that simple. If they had behaved the same way as we did they would not have called for the vote. Remember, they actually called for the vote. They didn't just let the budget go through after arguing against it, as we did. They called

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