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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 9 Hansard (7 September) . . Page.. 2969 ..

Mr Humphries: Not $10,000.

MR MOORE: It is quite clear, Mr Speaker, that it is inappropriate for them to do so.

Mr Stanhope: Yes, you have. Look at your last return.

Mr Humphries: I have my doubts.

MR MOORE: In this particular case the Electoral Commissioner has identified an anomaly in the act where a couple of people who are in the Assembly-

Mr Quinlan: What is your price?

MR MOORE: Mr Speaker, why don't you name him? We are getting a bit sick of this.

MR SPEAKER: Yes, I will be doing that very shortly.

Mr Corbell: It's nice to see some independent chairing.

MR MOORE: Thank you, Mr Speaker. What we have is a situation where the Electoral Commissioner has made a recommendation. He has identified an anomaly in the act for people who happen to be in the Assembly at the moment, but, of course, in the long term, as he did with a number of other issues and said, "Why don't we rectify this anomaly?" The government looked at the legislation and said, "Yes, we ought to support this bill because it rectifies the anomaly."

Ms Tucker later correctly identified that we should have a level playing field for everybody. The first step in responding to that is to respond positively to the Electoral Commissioner, and it is an appropriate time for us to philosophically think about what it is that ought to be disclosed. I doubt if anybody has a problem with the disclosure, for each member, of a range of issues, which of course we do in two ways. One is our declaration of interests which is held by the Clerk, under the auspices of the Speaker, and the second is what is declared under the Electoral Act.

Mr Speaker, what is declared in the Electoral Act ought to go to the heart of somebody who is standing for election and how they are getting there. That is where it is that the Labor Party has a problem in terms of their poker machines. Of course, if they can manage to shift the flak away from that they might be more successful. That is not just my comment. I raised this issue publicly five or six years ago. It has been raised by others since that time. We have seen at least one editorial in the Canberra Times and other comments from outsiders looking in that make it very clear that you have a very clear conflict of interest with regard to those millions of dollars that come in.

Mr Speaker, I think it is appropriate for us to consider the detail stage of this legislation this afternoon because I have not had the opportunity to study as carefully as I would like the amendments circulated by the Labor Party. I have got the general sense of them, but I know that Mr Osborne suggested that at the detail stage he would move for an adjournment until later today, not in an attempt to put it off but in an attempt to give us the lunchtime period.

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