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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 8 Hansard (25 August) . . Page.. 2351 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

the government of the day, and I apply these comments equally to the previous government, but I do not believe there is any suggestion of that in the ACT. There is not one suggestion of it.

Those who have joined the fray on Mr Kaine's part in the last few weeks, people who have been participants in other debates in the past and perhaps have been a little bit burnt by that, have supported the need, but again have not substantiated any suggestions. We had one correspondent saying, "I know of lots of cases of this". That person has been challenged subsequently to substantiate such cases and has not been able to do so, as far as I am aware, Mr Speaker. But those people are a very small number of people in respect of this debate. I do not believe that they represent the view of the majority of people in the ACT.

Mr Kaine, I think, has also misled the Assembly about the absence of appropriate investigating bodies in the ACT at present. He said there is no powerful investigating body in the ACT. That is nonsense. There is a very powerful body. In fact, there are several very powerful bodies, Mr Speaker. One of them is the body that he and others have relied on very heavily in recent days to investigate matters concerning the Bruce Stadium affair, and that is the Auditor-General. Mr Kaine has felt that that is a particularly powerful and appropriate body to be looking at these matters, yet apparently he also feels that it is not sufficiently powerful to investigate matters of corruption. If the Auditor-General were to uncover instances of corruption in respect of the Bruce Stadium, and I am confident that he will not, does Mr Kaine believe that he would be unable to properly bring that to the public's attention, or unable to highlight that appropriately in his report to this Assembly? I am sure that thought would not enter Mr Kaine's head. Nor would it enter the heads of anybody else who is observing this debate today. So why is the assertion made?

Of course, we have the Australian Federal Police. As Mr Kaine said in 1989, almost exactly 10 years ago:

Now, there is your powerful investigating body. We also have the Ombudsman. We also have a number of other bodies, such as human rights officers, the Privacy Commissioner and other people who have powers to investigate and to make reports in an independent way. Why do we think that any of these bodies are inadequate for that purpose? Mr Kaine has not explained why any of those bodies are inadequate. He thought that the AFP was adequate in 1989. What powers has the AFP lost in 1999 to render it not the "powerful investigating body" that he thought it was 10 years ago? I do not know.

Mr Kaine quoted a former New South Wales Premier talking about corruption, but he did not name that particular former New South Wales Premier. I think I would be right in suggesting that the former New South Wales Premier was Mr Greiner. Mr Greiner's view about the Independent Commission Against Corruption would be very different today from what it might have been a few years ago. (Extension of time granted) People

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