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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 13 Hansard (19 November) . . Page.. 3695 ..

MRS CROSS: Thank you Mr Speaker. One such example was the Callam Street realignment that has so adversely affected the Phillip business district. Mr Speaker, it is on record that I have had a long association with the Phillip Traders Association, and indeed was President of that group. On the day the election results were announced I raised with Mr Humphries the subject of two presidencies I held at that time. I asked him if he would like me to resign from the presidencies. Mr Humphries assured me that it would be beneficial for the Liberal Party's profile while in opposition if I stayed with both, so I did. He cited Mrs Carnell as an example, when she was elected to this Assembly while President of the Pharmacy Guild. He said she was able to keep that role while in opposition as there was no conflict of interest.

So you can imagine my shock and surprise to find that my association with the Phillip Traders was first in the list of spurious charges that Mr Humphries used as a pretext to expel me from the Liberal Party room. I now know that my level of knowledge about this particular land deal is something that both Mr Humphries and Mr Smyth should quite rightly be nervous about. To the Phillip Traders, the Liberal opposition and the people of Canberra I can only say on this matter: watch this space.

Mr Speaker, I am sure Mr Humphries and other Liberals in the opposition party would like the public to believe that I am simply now seeking revenge in the comments I make. In fact, I fully expect my voting patterns in this Assembly to be now interpreted as "vengeance" whenever they differ from the opposition's position. But the reality, Mr Speaker, is that the Liberal Party has now sown the seeds of its own demise. In short, the parliamentary party appears to be imploding.

I would now like to turn my attention to the aftermath of what should have been a conscience vote in this Assembly, but turned out to be much of the catalyst that led to my sitting on the crossbenches. Few would have been critical if I had simply voted along party lines with my then Liberal colleagues, but my conscience would not allow me to do that. You see, Mr Speaker, I consider myself to be a Liberal in the Robert Menzies sense of the word, and that is someone who holds dear the rights of the individual and considers government intervention in the day-to-day lives of its citizens as only warranted when in the public good and in the public interest.

My reasons for supporting your decriminalisation bills, Mr Speaker, were derived from the debates on those bills and from a wide spectrum of experience within the community. What was not particularly welcomed was the way Mrs Dunne, in particular, chose to seek to impose her personal set of beliefs on the rest of the community. It would come as no surprise to this chamber to know that Mrs Dunne holds deeply religious beliefs.

I am proud to live in a community and a country where religious tolerance is, by and large, the mainstay of public debates. But at the same time, Mr Speaker, part of living in a democratic country such as Australia is enjoying the freedom of not having other people's views thrust upon you, particularly other people's religious views. Mrs Dunne does not accept that view. In fact, as the public record now shows, she fought to maintain a situation where a woman's choice about what she does with her own body remains subject to the criminal law.

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