Page 2758 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 6 June 2012
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I know that the palaver that we so often get from Mr Corbell is to assuage, I guess, his guilt, perhaps, or his remorse over what has happened, although I doubt it is remorse. The problem is that what I said came to fruition. The things that I said were going to happen happened. The money I said would be transferred has been transferred. Indeed, the Labor Club, in their annual report, said they knew this—if they proceeded. They had not done the transfers when I tabled my bill, so the events that my bill would capture occurred after my bill was tabled, and indeed after it was agreed to in principle by this place. So in no way is it retrospective.
We have a period from 22 June last year until 30 June this year when there was not a cap on donations. My bill put that cap in place. It is something that apparently the Greens believe in, but their belief does not cover from 22 June last year until 30 June this year. They believe it. Ms Hunter tells us that they have campaigned hard for it. They wanted it, but they will not enforce it. One can only assume that either they are under pressure from their Greens-Labor colleagues in the Greens-Labor alliance or, perhaps, they have had donations of more than $50,000 in that area themselves and do not want to be caught. We will get the returns—we will get the Labor Club return and we will get the political party returns—at the appropriate time, later on this year, and we will find out then who got what.
The people of the ACT have been let down by this place. What we said would happen happened. This place believed that if big donations over $50,000 over that 12-month period occurred, they should be stopped. But the Greens do not have the political will, the guts, the wherewithal or the honesty to deal with this today. You can fabricate as many excuses as you like—“We’re too busy to have an amendment”; “I do not believe it needs an amendment”; “It is retrospective”, though it is not; or “We have moved on”—but it is still an offence.
You are not willing to put it to the test. You are not willing to back up what you believed on 29 June last year. People will know you for what you are, Ms Hunter—and your Greens colleagues. You are willing to say whatever you have to say, but you never come through and deliver on it. I have said this before, and I know there will be sniggers: they said they would be third-party insurance for the community; all they have turned out to be is third-party insurance for the Labor Party. I wonder how cheaply that policy was bought.
The problem with this is that we have members of the board of the Labor Club who signed off on their annual report saying: “We’ll transfer this money and we’ll cop the fine. It’s just the cost of doing business.” If a property developer did that, the Greens would be all over it like a fat kid over a doughnut. They would be salivating about getting all those dirty property developers for breaching the law and paying the fine as the cost of doing business. But when it comes to holding their Labor Party colleagues to it, they say: “Oh, no, we can’t do that. We’re not going to hold the Labor Party to account, because they’re the Labor Party and we always back the Labor Party.” And they always do back the Labor Party, because they want Labor governments. And they want to be in government with the Labor Party after the election later this year.
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