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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 9 Hansard (7 September) . . Page.. 2976 ..

MR BERRY: The gratuitous body language does not add much to the debate. (Extension of time granted.) Mr Speaker, the thought of blocking people from voting on a particular issue is just beyond belief. If you take it to its worst degree, none of us could even vote on a budget because it might in some way affect the rates on our house. That is how silly it is. It is just a silly notion. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

MR HARGREAVES (11.53): Mr Speaker, I just want to put on the record that I do not have any difficulty with any of my financial dealings being made available to anybody who wants to have a look at them. It would take them about 30 seconds to read it and to realise what an appalling state they are in anyway. I have, in fact, a rescue package at home and that is my dear wife. She looks after my affairs and makes sure that I am clothed and fed. As can be seen by my declaration of interests, we have a small flat. It returns a certain amount of rent but it actually costs me money to keep it. So the question is whether or not I am declaring a debt or whether I am declaring a profit, because it was not the wisest investment I ever made in my life. I just want to place my position on the record, Mr Speaker. I do not really care. In fact, I am quite happy to reveal all that I have.

I just want to utter a word of caution about this. There are other people affected by this too. A lot of the income that comes into our household-that is the wrong phrase, "a lot of the income", because there is not all that much of it-is joint income. So, whilst I might have no objection to my own financial information being made public, I cannot speak for my wife or anybody else in my family that it may be in the public interest to know about. I think it would only be fair to those people if they could see what is being proposed here as well.

Mr Moore: So are you going to oppose Jon's amendments?

MR HARGREAVES: Mr Speaker, one of the reasons why I listened to this debate on the television is that I could not stand the excited rantings of Mr Moore and the blood-red veins that were sticking out of his head. I do not want to put up with nonsense. Would you protect me from that horrible man? I am concerned that people who are otherwise affected by this get a chance to see what we are doing. I would be quite happy to have it put over until October as well. I do not want to put it over for forever and a day; just for enough time for those people to see what is going to happen.

The hysterical rantings about how much individual members of this side of the house receive from the Labor Club only demonstrates to me the professional ignorance of the minister for health. He is either grossly ignorant or incredibly mischievous in wanting to beat up another story in the paper to hide the bad ones that he is copping lately. He knows that you can always get a run by bashing the Labor Party with the Labor Club stick. I have to say people are getting weary about that. If only he would do what he keeps asking us to do. He says to us, "Why don't you come and talk to me before you shoot your mouth off?" I would like to invite the minister to do the same thing, to take his own advice. He can come and have a chat to me. I will put the coffee and the hot water in the cup, and I will put in the Valium for him while I am at it. I will tell him how much I got from the Labor Club. You could double that, minister, from out of your own change pocket.

Mr Moore: It's not you personally, John. I never said that.

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