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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 14 Hansard (10 December) . . Page.. 5100 ..

MR SPEAKER: Answers are not allowed to anticipate business which is on the notice paper, so you can ignore that part of the question.

Mrs Dunne: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: the answer is not to anticipate debate, but I don't think there was anything in what Mrs Cross asked which would ask the Chief Minister to anticipate debate.

MR STANHOPE: Mr Speaker, I am happy to say that, yes, my office has had discussions-I think with members of the Liberal Party; with members of the Greens party; with members of the Democrats party-urging them not to vote for what we regard as a simply outrageous piece of legislation, a piece of self-serving legislation designed to give a battling Independent a little bit of focus or grip in the place 10 months out from an election. We also oppose the inherently bad principle being expressed through the legislation. We think it is unfair; we think it is probably unconstitutional; we think it is selective; we think it is self-serving; we think it is absurd; we think it is a nonsense; we think it is bad. And we have expressed views along those lines to the Liberal Party, I believe; to the Greens party; and to the Democrats.

Yes, Mrs Cross, I guess it is fair to say we have approached other people in this place and we have urged them not to support this absurd proposal that you have been propagating-the self-serving and incredibly hypocritical piece of legislation which seeks to ban donations from clubs to political parties, without actually of course going into any detail or depth about the other support that members receive; without addressing the issue about how somebody elected to this place as a Liberal and then, being expelled from that party, takes up a position as an Independent, elected on the basis of donations from clubs to the Liberal Party, elected on the basis of donations to the liberal Party from-

Mrs Burke: How much?

MR STANHOPE: I have actually got it here. Don't any Liberal in this place, don't any person who was elected to this place as a Liberal, stand up and moralise about where they received the support for their election campaigns. The Labor Party is not doing it, but don't any Liberal or any person elected to this place as a Liberal dare stand up, moralise and get self-righteous or get into their self-righteous pulpits about the nature of the funding which they received to support their elections.

You can have any view you want about whether or not we get dirt on our hands for getting elected on the basis of support from the Australian Hotels Association, Canberra Casino, clubs around town or companies that actually supply alcohol-

Mr Smyth: Oh, titchy!

MR STANHOPE: I am not titchy about it at all; I am just honest about it. We will stand and we will acknowledge the basis on which we seek and accept funds, and we are not apologetic about it; we don't feel the need to apologise. But we are certainly not hypocritical about it, and we are not going to express the sort of hypocrisy that you will in relation to your supposed support for this particular piece of legislation-of course, the gross hypocrisy of somebody who was elected as a Liberal, on the basis of all those funding sources, to stand here now, more holier than thou.

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