Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .
Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 12 Hansard (18 November) . . Page.. 4183 ..
MR SPEAKER: Relevance.
MRS DUNNE: It is very relevant, Mr Speaker. One of this Chief Minister's ministers' jobs is on the line here and he cannot even bring himself to come down and defend his minister. It is pathetic. We have been sitting here since about quarter to 11 and he has not even deigned to darken the door of the place. It shows how much confidence he has in this minister.
MR SPEAKER: Would you come back to the debate, Mrs Dunne?
MRS DUNNE: It is all part of the debate. It is about the timeliness of this minister's apology. At the very last minute, when he had nowhere else to go, we had an apology, in many senses a scandalous apology.
He did say it was an error of judgment and he seriously regretted it, but he only seriously regretted it when he got into trouble for it. He got caught red-handed. Everybody in this place, including his own colleagues, in the representation of Mr Quinlan, admits that he committed a contempt. He has been caught red-handed. That is not when you apologise. You apologise beforehand. That is contrition; this is just trying to wriggle out.
As I have said before, there is no degree of seriousness of contempt. Erskine May says about contempt, as is quoted in House of Representatives Practice, that it is:
... any act or omission which obstructs or impedes either House of Parliament in the performance of its functions, or which obstructs or impedes any Member or officer of such House in the discharge of his duty, or which has a tendency, directly or indirectly, to produce such results may be treated as a contempt even though there is no precedent of the offence. It is therefore impossible to list every act which might be considered to amount to a contempt, the power to punish for such an offence being of its nature discretionary.
It is a matter of discretion and it is a matter of discretion for this house, which is why, as Mr Corbell has said, it is not appropriate for the Estimates Committee to make a recommendation as to whether or not there should be a punishment. It is the responsibility of the Estimates Committee to find out whether a contempt has been committed and to report on that. It is inappropriate for this committee to have made a recommendation that no further action should be taken, as it did in recommendations 2 and 3; that is a matter for this place.
On this occasion, this recalcitrant minister, who did everything he could to avoid questioning on the day, should be found guilty. He has been found guilty of contempt and he should be punished in the appropriate way, as precedent would set down, by either having the courage to resign himself, showing that he is a man. If he does not, his Chief Minister should have the courage to sack him and show that he is a man. If that does not happen, this place should find want of confidence in this minister and then he should resign.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .