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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 9 Hansard (7 September) . . Page.. 2981 ..

MR HUMPHRIES: Why haven't you done something about this before, Mr Quinlan or Mr Stanhope? Where was your conscience pricking you about getting these disclosure provisions out before?

Mr Quinlan: Why haven't you? You are on your feet. Tell us about you.

MR HUMPHRIES: You have been in this place now for the last 31/2 years. Where was your burning desire to get these things off your chest and put them on the table? Where was it?

Mr Quinlan: And you.

MR HUMPHRIES: I have had no problem with it. That is the difference. I have no problem with disclosing all the information.

Mr Stanhope: It meant you might have to do some more work.

MR SPEAKER: Careful.

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, I again have to appeal to you for fairness.

MR SPEAKER: Yes.

MR HUMPHRIES: We did hear the other members-

Mr Quinlan: Do not bait the other side of the house.

MR HUMPHRIES: I am sorry; I am making the same points you made.

MR SPEAKER: Order! If you feel you have been baited you have the opportunity to stand up at the end of the debate and make a personal explanation. That is the way to do it, not by constant interjections, thank you.

Mr Quinlan: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Would you direct Mr Humphries to direct his statements through the chair, in that case, instead of across the house?

MR SPEAKER: Mr Humphries always directs his statements through the chair.

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, I think we all have to acknowledge that there is nothing but the grossest hypocrisy in a party which lectures the community about probity, which lectures this place about the need to make sure that people act in an ethical way, that we have a high standard of disclosure, and yet comes to this place, day in and day out, and casts a vote on a matter where their own vested interest is intimately affected and has no compunction about doing so.

Mr Speaker, they say they are concerned about ethics, yet a proposal for the appointment of a commissioner for parliamentary ethics has been languishing in a committee that they are represented on, without apparently any action now for many months. That is a matter which would significantly raise the standard in this place.

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