Page 1051 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 3 May 2022
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MR DAVIS: I ask Mr Hanson to withdraw.
MR HANSON: Well firstly, Madam Speaker, on the point of order, I think that what I said is quite right. His interjection reaffirmed what I was saying. But also, that is a debating point. He can seek leave to speak again, and he is welcome to, but there is no point of order—
MADAM SPEAKER: This is a point of order; it is not a debate. There is no point of order. I ask everybody to be very mindful, firstly, of interjections and also how they conduct themselves through this debate.
MR HANSON: What we have seen play out here is, as Mr Davis has admitted, that the purpose of the letter was to promote federal candidates. So it is actually a campaign for federal candidates. And he said that, yes, it came from that address. When I said it, he interjected, but it is clear that that is what it is. Why else would you put an address on the letter? So people know who it has come from and if they want to contact them, they can. People would think, “Great, federal Greens. I am going to get on board with that. Who do I call? Who do I email? Mr Davis’s office.” So it is a problem. I think it is one that we need to address.
We are responding to this because it has come from advice from the Clerk. The Clerk gave us this letter that said not to mix the streams, and I think it is clear in this regard that Mr Davis has. If we were to agree that this matter should be referred, clearly that will be through the Speaker. But I think it behoves all of us to say, “Yes; we are going to uphold the rules of this place. The Clerk has given us advice; we are going to adhere to that and we will stand by that.” You cannot have, what Mr Davis seems to be saying through this debate, this sort of playing tricksy with the rules.
He is defending his position. Are we going to agree that, yes, you can just ad-lib what the Clerk said—that you can try and bend the rules or try and twist the rules? Are we agreeing that you can try and take advantage of the rules. Surely members do not support that. Let’s back the Clerk up, here. The Clerk has given us advice based on the laws of the land. Let’s back up what the Clerk is saying. Let’s adhere to the rules and say, “Yes this is a problem, and we as an Assembly commit that we are not going to use our offices to campaign for the federal election.” So, I encourage you to support this so that, as an Assembly we can say, “Yes, this is something that we should not be doing,” and refer it.
Now, it would be for the Commissioner for Standards to determine whether there has been a breach, but in our view, the Clerk’s letter says and reconfirms that you do not use your office to campaign, and then Mr Davis says, in here, “Yes, the purpose of the letter was to promote the federal candidate.” He said that and the letter has his address on it. It directly says, “This is who it is from, and this is who you contact.” It is a problem, is it not? Let’s face it: it is a problem and as an Assembly we need to refer it, because that says quite clearly, “As an Assembly we will adhere to the rules, and we will not try and use our offices or the resources of the Assembly.” Mr Davis has got it wrong. He needs to admit that, not try to double down and obscure that. If he has got this wrong—
Ms Clay: He literally said he will self-refer. Are you listening?
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