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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 8 Hansard (26 October) . . Page.. 2096 ..

MR CONNOLLY (continuing):

Mr Speaker, those ethical standards are not good enough for this Assembly; nor are they good enough for any Assembly that I know of in Australia.

Mr Humphries: They were, for you.

MR CONNOLLY: Mr Humphries says that they were good enough for us. Let him show us one example where any Labor member was involved in something as petty and stupid and unethical as this form of conduct. Labor members in this parliament, and Labor members and Liberal members in parliaments around Australia, tend to have an understanding of what is and what is not appropriate ethical conduct as members of parliaments, particularly when you are in government. We would say in opposition that we would want to keep the same high standards; but there is a difference when you are in government because when you are in government you have access to the public purse. I hosted one of those morning teas too. I paid for the morning tea myself, as did other members. No doubt Mr Hird paid for that morning tea himself. But Mr Hird was able to get up at that charitable function and announce that his company was going to be making a donation - - -

Mr Hird: I did not say "my company".

MR CONNOLLY: We know from what Mr Whitecross said, from the public record, that the company contacted you and you approved whom it was going to go to. You announced that there was a donation of public funds going to that charity in your electorate.

Mr Speaker, it is because of that that members of the business community of this town, for the past few weeks, have been contacting the Opposition expressing their grave concerns that a business associated with a member of parliament is running around winning government tenders in a way that raises fundamental questions. Mr Speaker, those fundamental questions have been put very well by Mr Whitecross. If this was a straight-out commercial contract that was won by the company associated with Mr Hird, that would raise serious enough questions; but this raises far more serious questions because the nature of this tender is very murky indeed.

We have had a great stirring defence from Mr Humphries in relation to the Hymans contract, saying, "Look, they wanted $24,000. That shows that we did the right thing". Mr Speaker, I think that raises serious questions. It should have set the alarm bells off very significantly. When I was Minister for Urban Services I would regularly get briefs from the departmental secretary or from departmental officers saying that a tender process had been concluded and the tender in relation to a major building contract had been awarded to Civil and Civic, for example, for $1.2m and the next contract was $1m, and so forth. I do not ever recall seeing a brief from my departmental secretary saying, "In relation to that building contract or that contract for the supply of services, we gave it to this company who said that they would do it for nothing".

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