Page 5658 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 6 December 2011
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
ago. For example, we require the Liberal Party to disclose that they are receiving money from rents. We require the ALP to disclose that they get money from the club industry. And that should be it, if you follow the tenor of this particular report. This report says that we should not be legislating to stop the government from the acquisition of money through profits from investments. And yet it is interesting that there is a private member’s bill before this house which would prevent a private entity—a political party—from receiving funds from a quite legitimate business. I see an absolute contradiction there.
I do not see how we can allow a government to invest in an industry which, according to some, will have a detrimental effect on the community at large and then go and legislate to stop it in another arena. That is terrible.
Mr Hanson: It is a leak.
MR HARGREAVES: We always thought it was Mr Hanson who was doing the leaking, but now we have proof positive with all that water on the desk! Mr Speaker, I thank Mr Hanson for livening up what had all the portents of a boring debate.
Mr Hanson: It even woke you up, Johnno!
MR HARGREAVES: It did not wake me up Mr Hanson; I do not think you are capable of waking me up. But I take note of what you said in your introductory remarks this very morning about interjections across the chamber, Mr Speaker.
I recommend this report to the chamber. I think it is a good piece of research distilled beautifully by Dr Cullen, who put together the positions put by Mr Smyth and I. I pay respect to Ms Le Couteur not only for putting her dissenting report together but engaging as we went down the various clauses and struggling with her own method of expressing that dissent—whether she would put it in the body of the report or whether she would put it together at the end. We had, I hope, quite a collegiate approach to that. Mr Smyth and I were very happy for Ms Le Couteur to put her dissenting comments in the body of the report to make sure that the context was there. In the end, it was her choice to consolidate them at the end in a report of its own.
In recommending this report to the chamber and to the community, I put on the record for those media people about that they should not stop after they have read the recommendations and that they should actually read the body of the report. If they do not, they might miss out on some of the good bits, and certainly they will miss out on Ms Le Couteur’s dissenting report if they just read the recommendations and stop. I would like to see the chamber and the community make a judgement on this based on the total views expressed in this report.
Mr Speaker, as I said, I find a decided inconsistency between this report as produced by Mr Smyth and the private member’s bill being proposed by Mrs Dunne. I am perfectly consistent on that: I do not think you can legislate against making money out of a legitimate business.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video