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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 8 Hansard (28 August) . . Page.. 2654 ..

MR MOORE (5.06): Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, it seems to me that we ought not to stand by and let this outrageous action continue. I find that it is absolutely appalling, and I am disappointed, to say the least, when I hear Ministers argue that ACTEW is not behind this. Mr Humphries said, "There is no evidence that ACTEW is behind this". The press releases put out by Ms Tucker suggested that ACTEW - they pointed to ACTEW and never mentioned Dr Sargent - was not living within the legislation that applied to it; it was not living up to the section that requires it to ensure that it has environmentally sustainable development. That is what the concern was.

The irony of the whole thing is that Dr Sargent, whom in many ways I admire - and I will come back to that - has actually taken this on personally. In other words, he sees himself as ACTEW - or did at that time see himself as ACTEW. What he is concerned about, I presume, is that somebody has said that he is not living within the law - in other words, that perhaps he is not taking notice of the law. His comments are reported in the Chronicle of 26 August in an article by Mark Ludlow as follows:

The problem is that, at the moment, she -

referring to Ms Tucker -

doesn't seem to think that she has to respect the law of the land ...

If indeed Ms Tucker made a defamatory comment about him individually when she was talking about ACTEW anyway, he is there pointing the finger immediately at her and saying that she is not living within the law of the land. One wonders where this sort of defamation should start and where it should finish. But it is not about that. It is about a strategic use of litigation to quieten somebody's opposition. That is what it is about. You never have to take it through; you just have to write the letters. As somebody whose family has received a similar letter in a similar way, I can say that it is devastating. You know that on the end of it what is being threatened is not just you personally; it is your family home. It is about your children and your family. It is a devastating thing to happen, and it is disgusting.

Mr Kaine stood here and said that Dr Sargent has taken this action himself - and I accept that as a point - and therefore there is nothing we can do about it. This is where I differ. Of course there is something we can do about it. We can learn from it and, if necessary, we can decorporatise ACTEW and Totalcare. It seems to me that, if members are going to be silenced into not being able to be critical of these bodies in a reasonable and rational way, then it is better for us to get them back into the Public Service and be able to criticise them.

When Mr Osborne and I supported the corporatisation of ACTEW - as I recall, my vote and Mr Osborne's were the last votes to tip the balance; either of us changing our vote would have given a different outcome - we understood that they would be open to criticism, open to all the methods of ensuring accountability. Mr Kaine ran through a whole series of those. They do apply, and I am very comfortable with most of those. It seems to me that when we put those Acts in place we did ensure, in many ways, accountability; but it just may be that we did not deal with this specific issue.

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