Page 4662 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 7 December 1994
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MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: I do not know that they can become senators otherwise, Minister.
MR CONNOLLY: I think that may well be the case. There is a lot of disquiet there about the money impact and about business interests impacting on public life. Attitudes have changed in the last 30 or 40 years. When Sir Robert Menzies was Attorney-General of Victoria he took private briefs. When he appeared for the Victorian Government in Privy Council cases in London - he was paid to go to London to appear in those cases - he also took private cases.
Mr Stefaniak: Doc Evatt did too. He was involved in a very important case for a long time.
MR CONNOLLY: No, Doc Evatt did not do it while he was a Minister; but he did do it while he was Leader of the Opposition.
Mr De Domenico: That is all right, is it?
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!
MR CONNOLLY: Just calm down. When Menzies did that, nobody objected. That was acceptable practice in the 1930s. But now, if any Attorney-General also took private briefs, that would be regarded, clearly, as inappropriate behaviour. Indeed, I think there would be difficulties with Opposition leaders conducting private legal actions. Mr De Domenico rants and raves, and says that it is silly and stupid and all the rest of it. If we are silly and stupid, we are silly and stupid in line with what is going on in the British House of Commons; we are silly and stupid in line with what has been the practice for a long time in relation to the executive branch in the United States, and is being increasingly looked at in relation to the legislative branch. This is an idea whose time is emerging.
MRS CARNELL (Leader of the Opposition) (11.12): Mr Deputy Speaker, this is an unusual motion, and I will not make a comment about it being silly. Mr Berry has done it for a particular reason, and that is, fairly obviously, to cast certain imputations and aspersions upon me about whether I am a full-time member of this house. I challenge Mr Berry to show once, one day, that I have not worked more hours than he has - not the same hours, but more hours. I challenge Mr Berry to have a look at the records in this Assembly of when I leave this Assembly every night. I challenge Mr Berry to show where he was here both Saturdays and Sundays, every Saturday and Sunday, as I am.
I am not standing here trying to justify my position, although Mr Berry has attempted to make me do so. I think the really important thing and the issue that is here is this: What are our roles as politicians? The roles of politicians are to represent the community, to know what the community thinks, and to know what the community feels; and to understand, to the best of our ability, what is actually happening out there in the various sectors of our community. Sitting here in our offices, as we would all know, is not the
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