Page 2449 - Week 06 - Thursday, 10 May 2012

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

annual report they would be breaking other laws. So they took the punt. They took a punt and suspected that the Greens would roll, and the Greens have rolled. The Greens have caved in. The Greens cannot stand in this place and say, “We will hold others to account,” if they do not pass this amendment tonight. What they will do is say, “We knew when we passed the law on 29 June that it was the right thing to do, but 10 months later we will just roll over and let them off the hook, because it’s about looking forward.”

It is so easy: “It’s about looking forward now; it’s not casting back.” The excuse is made: how far do you go back? You go back to the day that the law was given effect, and the day that I asked for that effect to be was the day that I tabled it, on 22 June last year. It became in-principle law on the 29th but apparently tonight it is just going to go away; it is just going to dissolve.

We do not actually know who made this decision because let us remember that the president of the club, the secretary of the Labor Party, the Chief Minister and the Attorney-General, none of whom knew about this—well, so they claim—all said this was not happening. And yet it did. The moral foundation of those that vote against this tonight will be eroded by this millstone that they will put around their necks for all time, because whenever you stand and talk about people who rort schemes I will stand up and remind you of what you do here tonight. You betray your principles; you betray the process of all the people who made submissions or gave testimony to the inquiry; you betray the inquiry that you, Ms Hunter, signed up to; and you betray the principle that we put in place when we passed it in principle—that transfers of money to rort the system in advance of the legislation that will be passed tonight are unacceptable. This amendment should be passed.

Question put:

That Mrs Dunne’s amendment be agreed to.

The Assembly voted—

Ayes 4		Noes 9
Mr Coe	Mr Smyth	Mr Barr	Ms Hunter
Mr Doszpot		Dr Bourke	Ms Le Couteur
Mrs Dunne		Ms Bresnan	Ms Porter
		Ms Burch	Mr Rattenbury
		Mr Corbell

Question so resolved in the negative.

MS HUNTER (Ginninderra—Parliamentary Leader, ACT Greens) (10.15): I move amendment No 3 circulated in my name [see schedule 9 at page 2479].

This amendment is pretty self-explanatory. It applies a donation cap from the day that the bill is notified. This is obviously so that we do not get any big donations coming in before the legislation comes into effect. As I said, it is pretty self-explanatory. It is applying a donation cap from the day the bill is notified.

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