Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 06 Hansard (Thursday, 24 June 2004) . . Page.. 2703 ..

Mrs Dunne: I am just asking for a clarification.

MR SPEAKER: I have ruled on the matter.

MR HARGREAVES: When people join the Hellenic Club, they join the Hellenic Club because they want two things: they want a club that has amenities that they can enjoy, and they want to know what the club stands for, which is the furtherance, quite rightly, of Greek culture. That is why they join.

MR SPEAKER: Mr Hargreaves.

MR HARGREAVES: Yes, Mr Speaker.

MR SPEAKER: I have just had another look at this. You should withdraw that.

MR HARGREAVES: I withdraw that, Mr Speaker.

People join the Burns Club for similar reasons and people join the Labor Club for exactly those reasons. There is nothing untoward about this. What we are doing is legislating away a person’s right to contribute to whatever they like. You are singling them out. Mr Quinlan is quite right: the singling out of one entity and the removal of the right of these people to make a contribution, either through the use of their amenity or through their fees, to the Labor Party is quite fundamentally wrong. You should not be doing this. Mr Quinlan is right: you are diminishing the dignity of this place. You are putting self-interest before reason.

It is quite clear to me that this amendment will get up. I sincerely hope that those people who consider themselves guardians of the rights of people in this town think very seriously about what they have done.

MS TUCKER (8.37): This is not an easy one for me. Mr Moore introduced this in the last Assembly, late at night, and he had had a really obvious campaign for years about the Labor Party’s conflict of interest because it received money from poker machines. That was just something that Michael ran with, as he had the right to. The Liberals ran with that as well. This came in, I remember, late at night. At the time, I checked Hansard and I remember saying, “I am not supporting this because we have not had time to consider it,” but I certainly cannot say that now. I have had lots of time to consider it.

The first point in this argument is conflict of interest. There can be a perception that there is a conflict of interest because the government of the day is receiving money from poker machines because they have clubs that are funding them. However, when I look at the record of Labor and Liberal, I do not see any difference in their performance on gambling. They are both pretty much co-opted by the revenue that comes in in the form of tax and that is, in my view, the main game. That is the big money, the millions of dollars that we are talking about that. From my observation, it is probably that revenue that has created a situation where neither major party is really seriously prepared to reduce that revenue by strict harm minimisation.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .