Page 3230 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 22 August 2012
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generations to ensure that we can pay our debts. Equally, we have an obligation to invest money in infrastructure and services that will also deliver future returns and prevent future liabilities. The way we invest our money should not be seen any differently. It should be done for a competitive return, but we do not have to give up on all our other values to achieve this. We do not have to rely on things that may damage the environment and damage communities.
As I have said, I am very pleased the government has made progress on this issue. I hope that the ideas set out in the policy, particularly the materiality test, are applied diligently. This is certainly an issue that the Greens will continue to raise. I am very confident that we will continue to see the growth of responsible and ethical funds available in the private sector as other governments increase their participation in this space. And the ACT will continue to be a progressive jurisdiction that better and better aligns our investment practices with the rest of our community values.
My bill set up a robust framework for our investments. It set out four things that I am surprised we cannot agree that it is not okay to profit from. And it created a statutory role replacing the advisory board that already exists and gives it the specific task of responding to other controversial issues where we should have a public policy about what we will and will not invest in. It is important to respond to the setting up of a massive bureaucracy. We already have a board. This was just around making it an independent and statutory board.
I will respond to the Liberals. I remember that when I first tabled the exposure draft Mr Smyth went down to do an interview and in that interview did not answer any of the journalists’ questions about the substance of the issue. Instead, he repeated some utterly ridiculous accusations about me and investments that were totally baseless and showed that he was just terribly ignorant on this issue.
Let me go to his colleague Mr Hanson. Mr Hanson, during debate about this issue, did actually say that he had no problem investing ethically. He said, and it is in the Hansard:
… I have no problems with investing ethically, absolutely not …
He went on to say that he believed the exclusions should not extend to weapons companies generally as these companies supplied the military. And he then said:
If it is going to be weapons that have been outlawed under certain conventions that Australia has signed up to, to do with mines or cluster bombs, then that is fine.
He then continued his opposition to excluding weapons generally.
This is exactly the type of debate we should be having—what do we think or what community values should we accept and reject.
Mr Hanson and I may have a different view about where our money should be invested, what sort of weapons should be allowed and so forth; but that is the sort of debate we should be having. It is a shame that we have not been able to have that
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