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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 8 Hansard (25 August) . . Page.. 2350 ..
MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):
this was the suggested committee from Mr Collaery, as I recall -
under allegations of corruption on the part of certain public officials. I think it would have been better, if it is thought that corruption exists, to have put the evidence on the table, to have had it properly investigated - if necessary by the Australian Federal Police. But simply to keep asserting, without producing any evidence, that corruption exists, I think is unfair, and I would go almost so far as to say that it is improper, certainly from a member of this Assembly.
Mr Speaker, what difference is there between what Mr Collaery did at that time and what Mr Kaine is doing now? One difference is that Mr Collaery was making reasonably specific allegations at that time about particular people. Mr Kaine is not making specific allegations, but I do not believe that is any reason to view any more kindly the basis on which Mr Kaine has brought forward the suggestion that we should be setting up an ACT ICAC because at least Mr Collaery, however misguidedly, as I think it was, was putting forward what he believed were allegations of corruption. Mr Kaine has not put forward any allegations of corruption. He has talked of disturbing revelations, but he has not substantiated them. In fact, he has not even documented or referred to any revelations.
I do not mind if there is an allegation which comes forward which cannot be substantiated by a person who makes it. In a sense there are times and there are places for such things to take place. Sometimes it is the duty of a member of this Assembly to make an assertion which they cannot substantiate at the time that they make it. Let us face it; it happens all the time. But, Mr Speaker, we have not had even that today. We have not had allegations without substantiation. We have not even had any allegations. We have had no assertions of particular instances of corruption. Mr Speaker, I think this is a very dangerous exercise and I think that we should be very careful.
Mr Kaine made reference to the creeping cancer of corruption. A cancer is treated by chemotherapy, but chemotherapy is a pretty devastating form of treatment and it does great injury to the people who undertake it. The side effects are quite severe, such as hair loss, loss of weight, severe sickness, nausea and so on. Mr Speaker, you would not subject a patient to chemotherapy if you were not convinced that they had cancer, but Mr Kaine is asking us to do that. He is asking us to impose a form of chemotherapy on the ACT without the evidence of there being that cancer, and that is a very serious concern.
Mr Speaker, the situation in New South Wales and Queensland was substantially different, as I said, from what it is in the ACT today. There were frequent allegations of corruption in those States. There was, moreover, a very strong public perception of corruption. I do not think I speak with any naivety or any sense of defensiveness about
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