Page 2761 - Week 09 - Thursday, 27 September 2007
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
That standing order 156 be referred to the Standing Committee on Administration and Procedure for inquiry and report, with specific reference to whether members who receive benefits from poker machine revenue should be able to participate in debate on matters pertaining to gambling and associated subjects.
Mr Speaker, there has been much in the media over the last couple of weeks about poker machines—the evil of poker machines, where the revenue comes from, where it goes, and problem gambling. Indeed, for as long as I have been in this place, the whole issue of the ALP receiving poker machine money and whether or not that is a conflict of interest has been debated, and it has been debated around this place for many, many years. We have had the example where a former member, Mr Osborne, said he would not vote on these things because he had a contract with a club that derived money from poker machines and, therefore, he felt he had a conflict of interest. Others have put forward, including the Liberal Party, the contention that, as poker machine revenue comes into the ACT ALP and that the ACT ALP therefore funds campaigns and runs the office that manages the affairs of the ALP in the ACT, there is a conflict of interest for the members who benefit from the efforts of that office.
Standing order 156 refers to conflict of interest, and it says:
A Member who is a party to, or has a direct or indirect interest in, a contract made by or on behalf of the Territory or a Territory authority shall not take part in a discussion of the matter, or vote on a question, in meeting of the Assembly where the matter or question relates directly or indirectly to that contract. Any question concerning the application of this standing order shall be decided by the Assembly.
There is a footnote referring to section 15 of the Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Act. Part of the dilemma may well be in the self-government act 1988, because it almost becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in that if you have got the majority in the Assembly, as currently exists under this government, if you are called to scrutiny under section 156 you can vote against that scrutiny. That is exactly what has happened, and that is exactly what happens as we stand here today.
This motion deals with the matter of conflict of interest relating to the activities of the members of the Assembly. There is an associated issue of the integrity of the decisions made by a government. Indeed, we have only got to then refer to the comments by the Reverend Tim Costello where he said:
ACT Labor’s dependence on poker machine revenue meant it could not make the right decisions about gaming.
So there is an independent commentator—he is not even an ACT resident—saying there is a problem here with conflict of interest. I think, Mr Speaker, that is something that we cannot have hanging over the Assembly. I think it casts a cloud over all of us, not just the Labor Party, and over the decision making in this place. Indeed, there have been recent comments in the media and on some of the talkback stations with
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .