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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 9 Hansard (7 September) . . Page.. 3113 ..

Mr Stanhope: Just tell me about 291B(2) again, Attorney. Just tell me about-

Mr Berry: What a craven performance that was.

MR SPEAKER: Order! I suggest that if you people want to have a discussion, you should go outside and do so. It is 25 past 12 and I do not intend to put up with it.

MR QUINLAN: We even have donors who have completed returns, including the AHA who supplied $5,800 to the Liberals. That is below 10 so that is okay. According to this, Michael Moore got 400 bucks from the AHA.

Ms Tucker: I didn't get any either.

MR QUINLAN: You are out. So, Mr Speaker I contend that a lot of what was said earlier yesterday not surprisingly could be described as humbug and I so describe it.

MR SPEAKER: I call Mr Moore. In case you have forgotten, we are discussing Mr Stanhope's amendment No 1.

MR MOORE (Minister for Health and Community Care) (12.28 am): No, I have not forgotten at all Mr Speaker. I think that some members are entirely missing the point of the legislation. I think Ms Tucker touched on the real issues when she talked about the notion of a common register. I think this illustrates why we should oppose Mr Stanhope's amendment. I have suggested to Ms Tucker that we need to spend more time thinking about it and I realise that that is one of the points of her argument.

I would say that the opposite is true because what we ought to be doing in our Electoral Act is making sure that finances are declared in terms of the support that people have to go to an election. That is what the process is about here. Once somebody is here in the chamber, what you actually want to know is whether or not they have a conflict of interest and that is why we have a register of where people get money from.

I think there are two separate important things involved here. There is a register of the types of places you get money from-the shares you own and that sort of thing-as this may have an impact on how you vote. Also, there is an Electoral Commission register of the money used by a person to run for an election. I think that whilst there is an overlap-and that is where you are coming from-there are two separate principles in what we are trying to achieve. I must say that I added to the confusion somewhat today by exposing the hypocrisy of the Labor Party in the way they vote with regard to poker machines. I was not convinced by Mr Quinlan's strange attempt to respond to that.

Even more interesting is the fact that up until tonight I would have thought Labor members did not how to absent themselves from a vote. We had a very clear indication tonight that Mr Stanhope has been shown by the rest of the caucus how to absent oneself from the vote when you do not have the caucus on side.

It seems to me that we need to keep those things in perspective. Whilst it is appropriate for us to have a level playing field-I think everybody agrees that this should be the case-my view is that we ought at this stage follow the recommendation of the Electoral

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