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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 7 Hansard (26 June) . . Page.. 2645 ..

MRS DUNNE

When the Committee of Grievances discussed his speech, Francis Bacon-

no slouch-

brought forward a series of awkward precedents from Elizabeth's reign demonstrating that she had often tried to stop debate when she considered that it touched upon her prerogative, but what the House could not deny it was prepared to ignore and on 23 May it submitted a petition claiming the right to debate any aspect of the royal prerogative which encroached on the Parliament's liberties.

You might think that it is esoteric, but this is really what it is about. When you have the glorious revolution of 1688, it is about asserting the right and power of parliament over the Crown, and in this case over the executive. (Extension of time granted.) That means that in this place this parliament is entitled to ask for and receive, for the most part, straightforward answers to straightforward questions. We are entitled to that and a member is not entitled to make a pre-emptive strike and say, "I will not answer a certain class of question."

Moving on to Mr Corbell: I thank Mr Corbell for making his apology. I always say that it is a very important thing that people can admit their mistakes and apologise for them, and I do thank you for that. But the issue that still arises is: what was the motivation for doing what you did? You had three weeks notice at least that you would be appearing on a particular day and you would know from your experience in being on estimates committees that the hospital waiting list would be an issue of prime concern.

I can see that, with hindsight, you regret it, but what you did on that occasion was to fly in the face of convention and to fly in the face of what is reasonably acceptable. I think that this matter needs to be addressed by a group of people who are dispassionate and removed from the occasion.

Mr Corbell also spoke about the document that was generated in his department. He said here that the real issue was that we were after more documents. Yes, we did ask for documents. The Estimates Committee asked for documents to be produced and there was a reasonable list of documents produced. There is some belief that not all the documents were produced, because there was a class of documents asked for in relation to what disciplinary actions were taken and those documents were not provided, so there were documents outstanding.

But that is not the point; it was not a document fishing exercise. The point is whether the document that was created in your department, with or without the permission of the minister, the executive or anyone in the minister's office, irrespective of who was involved, constitutes a contempt of this Assembly through the Estimates Committee. I believe that it does. That is why I will be voting to refer that matter to a privileges committee and there the privileges committee must determine whether a contempt exists.

In all of these cases, Mr Speaker, it is not for us to say tonight that a contempt has been committed. It is for us to determine whether there is sufficient evidence and whether we should refer that matter for someone else to make that determination, to a subset of those of us here today to make that determination. It is not for us here today to say that a

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