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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 5 Hansard (6 May) . . Page.. 1465 ..
Ms Carnell: There were not any proceedings.
MS TUCKER: He thinks it is okay for him to tell another party to the proceedings where they should get legal advice. The interjection is: "They are not a party to the proceedings". That is not the impression the ACT community has. If you cannot see that and work that out as politicians, you really have blown it. You have not only blown it as politicians; you have blown it in terms of your credibility. The Attorney-General, for that reason alone, in my view, needs to stand down.
I was very concerned to see Mr Osborne claiming this was just about making the Bender family suffer and how sordid it all was. Can I just say that Mr Osborne is not alone in feeling deeply for the Bender family? Our responsibility in this place is also, however, to look at government processes. How you look at government processes is through an event. An event in this case does involve a particular family. Most events have particular people or incidents as their basis, and that is how you examine government processes. This is our responsibility as members of this Assembly.
Mr Moore also got stuck into Mr Collaery. That has to do with their past relationship, I guess, but I think Mr Moore also needs to realise why people in the ACT community are prepared to consider the possibility of conspiracy. As I said at the beginning of this speech, it is not just Mr Collaery - it is many people in the ACT community - who does not have confidence in the processes of this Government, who is suspicious in fact of what this Government is doing. It is with regret that I support this motion, because I recognise how serious it is, but I believe that the ACT community will not have confidence in this parliament as well as this Government if we sit back and let these kinds of processes occur without objection.
MR SMYTH (2.50): Mr Speaker, I will start by reading a short statement that Ms X has asked be read. Ms X has supplied a statutory declaration in response to Mr Bender's declaration. Ms X says:
In response to points 1 and 2 Mr Bender makes the statement that he never met me before. That may be true and when Mr Bender asked me who I was I said that I was here with Mr Skrnjug and that maybe, if he doesn't know me, he may know my parents. Mr Bender said that he did know my father and that he had a number of conversations with him. Mr Bender said, is it you or your sister that is a lawyer? To which I replied no it was I who was a lawyer. I may have said that I work in Gary Humphries office in conversation.
I have already addressed point 3 my previous statement. In relation to point 4, I do not recall Mrs Bender saying that Y and I should come back when she invites us.
I table that document. Mr Speaker, this is just farce. This is high farce, because this is the day when, in less than 10 minutes' time, we will hear from the Leader of the Opposition about something that he is responsible for. This motion talks about responsibility. The Leader of the Opposition is to give us the alternative budget this afternoon at 3 o'clock. I can only suspect that, given the favourable response from the
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