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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 7 Hansard (30 June) . . Page.. 1882 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

A majority of the members of this place believe the case has been made. Mr Rugendyke agrees that the law has been broken. He did not pull his punches on it. He was unequivocal. Mr Rugendyke has accepted the merit of the argument that the Opposition has mounted today. He accepts the merit of the argument. He has accepted the merit absolutely. A majority of the members of this Assembly accept the merit of the argument. Mr Rugendyke has some issue around an appropriate penalty. He is disinclined at this stage, it seems, to support a motion of no confidence. He believes, instead, that the Chief Minister should be censured. He thinks that it is that serious that the Chief Minister should be censured. Of course, as a corollary to that, he proposes, as does Mr Osborne, to look with interest at the Auditor-General's report and then he will consider whether to support Mr Osborne's no-confidence motion in October.

Mr Rugendyke's approach is a two-step approach. At this stage, the matter is bad, the matter is serious, the matter demands condemnation, the matter demands that the Chief Minister be censured. For that, at least, I am pleased that Mr Rugendyke has accepted the merits of the argument and sees what this Chief Minister and this Government have done. At the least, the Chief Minister will be censured. Of course, it is just a holding position by Mr Rugendyke, just as Mr Osborne's position is a holding position. But Mr Osborne, expecting the Auditor-General's report to be particularly bad, has promised tonight that he will pursue a no-confidence motion in October if it is half as bad as he thinks it will be. Mr Rugendyke comes in behind him on that. As I said before, I am not sure that that is an appropriate response. It seems to me to destabilise the Government quite significantly and, in a way, it is personally a cruel thing to do to the Chief Minister as she now knows that she is on three months' grace and almost certainly will face a successful no-confidence motion in October if this one is not successful tonight. I urge Mr Osborne and Mr Rugendyke to take the decision tonight. There is no sense in putting it off. I urge them to do that and I continue to commend my motion to all members of the Assembly.

Question put:

The Assembly voted -

AYES, 9   	NOES, 8

Ms Carnell  	Mr Berry
Mr Cornwell  	Mr Corbell
Mr Hird  	Mr Hargreaves
Mr Humphries  	Mr Kaine
Mr Moore  	Mr Quinlan
Mr Osborne  	Mr Stanhope
Mr Rugendyke  	Ms Tucker
Mr Smyth  	Mr Wood
Mr Stefaniak

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