Page 149 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 8 December 2004
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Mr Speaker, this Chief Minister, this Attorney-General, is not doing that. He is directly involved in these matters. He is not acting at arm’s length. He is not acting in a totally disinterested way.
MR SPEAKER: Mr Smyth, you are straying into a dangerous area.
MR SMYTH: We sometimes stray, Mr Speaker; I will take your advice. The current Chief Minister went on to say:
Not knowing simply does not deflect from the fact that it exhibits, at the best, a perception, if not an actuality, of bias. It exhibits the fact that—
MR SPEAKER: Order! Mr Smyth, we have just had a long debate on this subject.
MR SMYTH: I am quoting from the Assembly of 1999, Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER: You can quote as much as you like, Mr Smyth, but the matter has come before the court since then.
MR SMYTH: No, this is about the way the Attorney-General operates and it is about whether the Attorney-General has a bias, not about whether the coroner has a bias.
MR SPEAKER: Continue.
MR SMYTH: The current Chief Minister went on to say:
Not knowing simply does not deflect from the fact that it exhibits, at the best, a perception, if not an actuality, of bias.
That was the quote. He went on to say:
It exhibits the fact that here we have an Attorney that acted in a way that was contrary to his responsibilities as Attorney-General and first law officer on all occasions to act as Caesar’s wife did.
This is the principle that we have had for a couple of millennia. Caesar’s wife was aware of the need to be above reproach, to be beyond suspicion. It is a principle that has been around forever, and it applies particularly to an Attorney-General, to a first law officer, and this Attorney-General has failed.
That is what we, on this side of the house, believe, Mr Speaker. This Attorney-General has failed.
In closing my contribution to this debate—obviously, I cannot go beyond the time limit because of the government gag—I want to quote another supposedly eminent politician. His contribution to a previous debate was:
… I believe that in this affair, in a matter so grave relating to actions on behalf of government, any action taken by the Attorney would be at absolute best very injudicious and would represent a considerable ineptitude on behalf of the Attorney.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .