Page 4660 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 7 December 1994
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The same thing applies to anybody else who is engaged in a business of any kind when they are elected to parliament. They run businesses. They have responsibilities to people. They have employees. Mr Berry suggests, obviously, that the minute you are elected to this place you should fire all your employees and throw your family business aside.
This motion is unacceptable. It might be all right for somebody who never had a business, who never worked for himself in his life, who never had to be worried about employees that he had to pay. That might be all right. That might be an attitude that would be reasonable. I do not accept it. I think this is a nonsense motion. I do not even manage a portfolio of properties. I have no interests outside this place, except what I do here. How many of us in this place came here with property portfolios and share portfolios that they manage and which bring them in a very nice income, thank you? They are not all on this side of the house. Is Mr Berry suggesting that that is an improper activity? This is absolute nonsense. The motion is a nonsense motion. It is not a question of principle at all, and the sooner we vote on it and vote it out the better.
MR MOORE (11.04): I would like to have a couple of words on this silly motion and to explain why I supported it coming on at this time in private members business during a discussion in the Administration and Procedures Committee, Mr Deputy Speaker. The reason I supported it coming on at a reasonable time was that Mr Berry pointed out that this is the first time that he has sought to put private members business on the notice paper as a private member. Many other people have had a chance to have business brought up and therefore he ought to be entitled to have some business up as well. It was a good argument, Mr Deputy Speaker, which is why it was carried by the Administration and Procedures Committee; but what a waste! What a waste of private members business, that he should put on something so silly! After all the arguments Labor put this morning about things being sprung on and so on, he puts a motion like this on the notice paper, clearly with no real intention of it having any effect. Mr Deputy Speaker, such a motion can never bind anybody here anyway. Secondly, such a motion - even an Act of this parliament - could not bind the next parliament if they did not want it to. This whole concept is silly. It was clearly designed as an exercise to have a go at a few people, which is what Mr Berry seems to be keener and keener to do as we get closer to an election. I think the motion deserves disdain.
MR DE DOMENICO (11.06): Mr Deputy Speaker, I agree with Mr Moore. This is a silly, simplistic motion. Let me tell you why it is silly and simplistic. Look at some definitions, Mr Deputy Speaker. The first one that comes to mind is "fanatic". I think the best definition of a fanatic I have heard came from the late Winston Churchill, who said that a fanatic is one who cannot change his mind and will not change the subject. When you read Mr Berry's motion again you think, "Yes, it is fanatical; but it is also a stupid motion". That tends to make one go to the dictionary and to say, "What is the definition of 'stupidity'?". There are a few of those that I came up with as well. One of them was from Charles Dickens. Charles Dickens said, "He would be sharper than a serpent's tooth if he was not as dull as dishwater". There are other definitions of stupidity too. Human stupidity, Mr Deputy Speaker, consists of having lots of ideas but stupid ones. "Against stupidity the gods themselves struggle in vain", is what we can say about this silly, stupid, simplistic motion. When you see who is responsible for the motion you are not terribly concerned, just as the people of Canberra will not be concerned.
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