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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 13 Hansard (19 November) . . Page.. 3773 ..

MR HARGREAVES (continuing):

The Barich family operated a home-vending service for milk in the Kambah area. They have just advised their customers that they will be ceasing trade.

For people who have cars and can zip off to the shop, it is all well and good, but for elderly people in North Kambah it is not all right. These people will be without milk. If you have a choice between gross stupidity and political bastardry, I would say to go with gross stupidity, because it works every time for me, especially with that lot over there. They are either deaf or stupid, possibly a little bit of both. I told them time and time again in the course of the last Assembly that these small businesses were going to go to the wall. What was their response? They said, "We will come up with a compensation scheme but, bad luck, you are gone. Tough, tough, tough."

This regime that has now been fortuitously tossed out on its ear, with absolutely no hope of ever being returned, such is the disarray it has displayed in recent times. You can see them deserting the ship in droves to seek the sanctuary of the Senate.

There was no need for them to take the action they did. They sacrificed small home businesses on the altar of competition policy. There was no need for these people to have their businesses pulled out from underneath them or, as in the case of the Bariches, to die a slow death. I lay the death of this small business at the door of the Liberal Party. It is absolutely appalling. I hope they think about it a little bit more before they stand up in their self-righteous way and say they are the supporters of small business. They want to have a look around the ACT and see just how many bodies lie around the streets.

These small business should not have had to go to the wall. No public benefit test was done to show why these businesses ought to go to the wall. There was no public benefit test to show why the oldies should not get their milk delivered to their homes. All we saw was the forelock tugging at the altar of Allan Fels and the national competition policy. I do not give a fat rat's who invented the national competition policy. I do care about the victims of it. I do care about it when we told this Assembly that this would be the case. I stand here before you mourning the loss of yet another small business.

I just wonder which one of those people opposite, who are responsible for this, is going to go around to the customers of these people, particularly the older ones, and volunteer to take them down to the shop to pick their milk up. I mourn their loss. I lay the death of the Barich company at the feet of the Liberal Party.

Disorderly behaviour

MRS DUNNE (5.41): Mr Speaker, last week Ms Tucker raised in this place the issue of disorderly behaviour. Standing orders took a fairly large battering this morning, and I think there was a fair amount of disorderly behaviour. I did raise matters with you earlier in the day, Mr Speaker, and I would like to quote to you from page 490 of House of Representative Practice. It says under "References to and reflections on Members":

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