Page 3338 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 19 August 2009
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In the context of the tabling of documents of private organisations, it is interesting where this takes us, Mr Speaker. I have long had an interest in the identity of the members of the 250 Club. Would it be relevant or appropriate for me to request that the Leader of the Opposition table all of those documents pertaining to the activities of the 250 Club and donations made by the members of the 250 Club to the Liberal Party in order that we might determine that all aspects of the Electoral Act and laws have been complied with appropriately at all times by all members of the 250 Club? It would be interesting, of course, as we transition from the 250 Club to the Deakin foundation or forum, which I understand Mr Seselja attended on Monday night—the body that actually supplants or supplements the abandoned 250 Club, the fundraising arm of the Liberal Party.
I have a passing interest, as we all do, because we are all a bit nosy, in exactly why it was that Deb Foskey stood down from the Assembly, and the circumstances surrounding that. It would be interesting to ask the Greens, perhaps, to table all of the Greens’ internal documentation in relation to all of the circumstances surrounding the resignation of Dr Foskey. But these are private matters—
Mrs Dunne: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: this question to the Chief Minister asked him to make full disclosure to the Assembly in relation to the sale of the Labor club. The Chief Minister has gone a long way away from the sale of the Labor club, and I ask you to bring him back to that and to whether he is prepared to make full disclosure in that matter.
MR SPEAKER: Chief Minister, I think you have made the point about private organisations. Could you return to the original question.
MR STANHOPE: I wasn’t too subtle, Mr Speaker?
MR SPEAKER: I don’t think so.
MR STANHOPE: I thought perhaps it was my subtlety in relation to the fact that every one of us in this place, in a private capacity, belongs to a political party. My membership of the Australian Labor Party is separate, distinct and divorced from my role as Chief Minister of the Australian Capital Territory, and it is.
Mr Hanson: It should be but is it? That’s what we’re trying to find out.
MR STANHOPE: Yours is not, is it? Is this what you’re saying—that your membership of the Liberal Party is not separate from your role as a member of the opposition? I belong to the Australian Labor Party; I have belonged to the Australian Labor Party for 33 years, proudly. I belong in my private capacity. I have a number of functions and responsibilities as a member of the Labor Party that are completely distinct and separate from my role and responsibilities as Chief Minister and as a member of this place.
If anybody suggests that there is any aspect of my behaviour as a member of the Labor Party that is not appropriate, or indeed that of my colleagues, I invite them to show in which way. I invite them to show the basis on which they would make those
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