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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 12 Hansard (5 December) . . Page.. 3622 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

This government renders all of that as naught. This is not something that is to be measured by this government. It is not to be applauded. It is in fact to be denigrated. You cannot measure it. It is an intangible thing. It is impossible to measure that level of support. This is all being rendered as nothing by this government in its fixation with formulas, percentages and amounts, all designed to impose on the entire licensed club movement a measure of whether or not they contribute. The only way in which you can be seen to contribute is if you contribute a certain percentage of your takings to designated purposes. This undercuts and demeans the other enormous purpose by which the licensed clubs abide.

The pity of this debate is that the government has not hesitated to denigrate and seek to bring down that enormous public benefit which the licensed clubs provide to the people of the ACT for what has now been revealed in all its smelly glory, through Mr Moore's amendments, as nothing but a device designed to disguise the real intention of this whole debate - a desire to attack the Labor Party and its affiliated unions. That it all it is. We see it in Mr Moore's amendments. This is all about a double whammy on the Labor Party - a double payment by the Labor Party through the Labor clubs and through the trade union clubs.

If you are a working man or a working woman, a member of a union, part of an organisation that was developed and created to support you as a working man or a working woman, you are to be doubly penalised by this Liberal government. Tell me that this has nothing to do with ideology, that this is all about community contribution, about donations to charity, when the clubs that were formed and created by working men and women are the clubs that are now singled out - the clubs associated with the Labor Party.

There is no community purpose, no community value, in working men and women joining unions and, through their membership of a union, seeking to advance their situation, seeking to contribute to and participate within their community to the fullest extent possible. This is not a community purpose. There is no community advantage in this. Working men and women are not entitled to participate as fully within this Canberra community as are other men and women. There is no ideology in this; there is no political purpose; there is no conflict of interest! What a load of garbage!

This is a charade designed to attack a source of funds available to the Labor Party, your political opponents. That is what it is all about. In your grubby attempts to attack us, you do not hesitate to demean the entire licensed club movement in the ACT. You do not hesitate to demean the contribution which they make to the community. You do not hesitate to belittle the enormous efforts the sporting clubs and other clubs formed for other purposes in this town make for their particular communities, all of which are part of our community. It is absolutely outrageous.

Mr Moore: I wish to make a personal explanation under standing order 47, Mr Speaker.

MR SPEAKER: Let that be done.

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