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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 14 Hansard (10 December) . . Page.. 5183 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

have had on democracy in the United States you will see that this is something we need to be very afraid of. It is becoming more of an issue in this country. Whether it is the Democrats, Labor or Liberal Party, you are getting increasing corporate donations. I think the question is: what does this do for democracy in the long run? If we are all able to accept personal donations, donations from natural persons, which is what my bill will be suggesting, then you will have a situation where we will not need this kind of debate.

The bill we are now considering deals with only one sort of donation. It does not, as I said to begin with, deal with any of the issues of gambling-related harm; it does not deal with the issue of the huge reliance that either Labor or Liberal governments have on taxation that comes from gambling. So it is not a bill that the Greens would be prepared to support.

These debates are always useful but I am very sorry that Mrs Cross has added an element and that is she has chosen to basically lie to the community by claiming that I have changed my vote or voted in a particular way because I was offered preferences. I think Mrs Cross needs to just think again about how I do politics. She may be projecting her own way of doing politics here-I am not sure-but the issue that needs to be made quite clear is that I am not-

Mrs Cross: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: that was an imputation. I ask Ms Tucker to withdraw the word "liar"and the inference that I do politics in a way that she finds unacceptable. She called me a liar in her speech, and I ask her to withdraw it.

Mr Hargreaves: On the point of order, Mr Speaker: Ms Tucker said that she believed Mrs Cross had lied to the community, not to the Assembly, not to any member here, and that-

Mrs Cross: Mr Speaker, that was an imputation. I ask Ms Tucker to withdraw it.

Mr Hargreaves: We have talked about the exactitudes of whether it is unparliamentary to suggest a member has lied to the community or to the Assembly. You have ruled in the past that it is not unparliamentary to say that a member may have lied to the community.

Mrs Cross: Mr Speaker, that is not what-

MR SPEAKER: Order! I have heard you Mrs Cross.

Mrs Dunne: On the point of order, Mr Speaker: in this place in the past you have ruled that it was permissible to say that a member may have misled the community and that one could not say that a member had misled the Assembly, but on no occasion has it been permissible to say that someone has lied to anyone.

Mrs Cross: Exactly.

MR SPEAKER: Lying is out. Withdraw that please.

MS TUCKER: I am happy to withdraw "lying"in that case and say "misled". But I think it is not unparliamentary to say "mislead the community".

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