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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 01 Hansard (Tuesday, 10 February 2004) . . Page.. 15 ..

MR QUINLAN: No, and let me make it clear that this is my opinion. If that precludes me from sitting on the committee, I am devastated, let me tell you. Once we have gotten to the point—and I think it has been universally agreed that there has been a misuse of a role—then quite obviously the matter does fall to the Assembly and not to individuals themselves or to their parties. I think that it then behoves the committee to determine the final outcome and to determine whether there was intent on the part of Mrs Dunne to curry favour with the electorate or to induce bias.

You do not mind people currying favour with the electorate as long as they do not use their positions to do so, or attempt to bias the final outcome by attracting a wave of particularly opinionated submissions to the committee. I think we should just let nature take its course from here.

MRS CROSS (11.19): I wanted to echo and support the sentiments of my fellow crossbench members. More often than not, I am aware that the views that come from the crossbench are those that serve the community first and parties second.

My personal opinion is that there appears to have been an interference in the committee process, as shown by the information on this leaflet. In fact, when I first saw it, the comment that I made to the person who showed it to me was that I did not believe that Mrs Dunne was the author of it, because I did not think she could have been that stupid. I made that clear to her as well. I was quite shocked that she was the author of it, because she had worked here for a number of years as a staffer, and she was far more aware of and familiar with the committee process and the machinations of the Assembly than some of us, the new members, who from time to time may have stumbled over some things. This was somebody who had extensive experience in this place.

It did cause the committee a lot of anxiety. It wasted a lot of our time when we could have been spending it on other committee matters. Mrs Dunne did say earlier that there are three very strong members in this committee—as she is herself, the fourth member—and that what she did really would not have an effect on our opinion. Our opinion in this instance is not the greatest issue now. The issue is the fact that this action has compromised a potential committee inquiry. Irrespective of how objective we are in approaching this inquiry, we will be accused of either not doing it right or being biased. This leaflet has now gone out there and compromised the committee process. That is the concern that I have.

I think Ms Tucker’s comments were absolutely right: maybe it was just a lapse of judgment. No-one can determine the intent, except for a committee, and even then it is awkward. We have had a number of committees in this place, including privileges committees, where we have used the honour system. We hope that the honour system will work. We hope that the information that members of those committees have does not go outside the committee process and into the party system, where perhaps party members may be privy to information that would influence their decisions. We have to rely on the system, but I felt that there was an abuse of the position. That was just my personal view.

I think Ms Tucker was right in saying that the process does allow our views to be challenged. That is the purpose of the privileges committee, and the purpose of us

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