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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 12 Hansard (5 December) . . Page.. 3694 ..

MR HARGREAVES (continuing):

Now, if anybody wants to look askance at that, as the Chief Minister is, I invite him to go to your office, Mr Speaker, and examine the records. Not one penny did I receive specifically from the Canberra Labor Club. Not one, in the campaign. Nor do I expect it. I understand where Mr Moore is coming from, but he is frightened because the Labor Party is getting all of this money from one source. And yet, if you have a look at the other side of the ledger, there are a lot of people there.

But where is the even - handed approach to that? Is Jim Murphy going to have to give the same amount of money out to charity? I do not think so. He is not going to be required to. Whether he does or not is immaterial, because these people on the other side here, Mr Speaker, do not count the amounts of money that go from these clubs into the charitable organisations, except for that one little ray of light that I saw a little earlier on, when the Chief Minister himself said "the best performing club".

You said this. You can shake your head till it falls off, Chief Minister. You said that it was the best performing club. And, in fact, if my memory serves me correctly, I think you will find that it is up around 23 per cent, on your own figures.

Mr Humphries: Of the ones I quoted.

MR HARGREAVES: Well, in fact, if it was only of those you quoted, I invite you to name the club that bettered it.

Now, what happens, of course, is that we have all of these others on here. There are a number of other clubs who did not make a contribution to the Labor Party. Have you singled those out? The Tuggeranong Valley Rugby Union Club gave $1,700 to the Liberal Party. They, too, have lobbied us all about the casino and poker machines. Are we going to be influenced by them? We received no money. Are we going to be influenced to vote the other way because we have received no money from them? I do not think so.

From what I can see here, I can understand Mr Humphries having as his life's work the destruction of the Labor Party, and good on him. If that is his life's work, I wish him luck, because he is going to need it. For, Mr Moore, I think it is an exercise in political expedience and political hypocrisy.

Mr Osborne, I think, is just mistaken. I would invite him, in fact, to have another look at the list that he picked up and consider whether he has been even - handed about this. When he stood away from the vote on this thing before, because he was connected with a club in West Belconnen, which will remain nameless, I thought - and I might say I was not surrounded by colleagues in this - that at least he had some idea of the right thing to do.

But he is not doing it if he is looking at this stuff here and saying, "Look at how much the Labor Club got. We have to vote against that. We have to make sure that the ALP gets absolutely nothing out of the Labor Club."

He is hiding behind this concept that they have to give the same amount out to charities. Well, they do already. So where is the problem? What I am seeing here is that you are not making these other people do it. You are supporting the Chief Minister's life's work.

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