Page 3729 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 18 October 2005
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It is not something I would have done. We will work with the Prime Minister to come up with sensible laws.
On PM, Premier Iemma stated:
… the draft is fairly consistent with the summit agreement announced by the PM.
He has also been reported as being critical of Mr Stanhope’s leaking of this draft legislation. Mr Stanhope said on the same program, PM, last night that the commonwealth cannot make laws without the approval of the states and territories, to which the PM reporter replied that state leaders disagree with that.
Mr Speaker, on 25 August this year, you introduced a code of conduct for all members of the ACT Legislative Assembly. It was explained by you at the time as follows:
We are required to safeguard confidential material we gain access to as part of our duties as members. Access to information not available to ordinary members of the community is a privilege of office and we need to understand the impact that misuse of such information can have.
Have you got your ears open, Jon? The explanation continued:
We must certainly not use information gained as part of our office for personal gain.
Clearly, the Chief Minister has engaged in a serious act of misconduct By his behaviour in leaking confidential draft legislation, he obviously does not support the ministerial code of conduct that his government has introduced.
The Chief Minister is clearly out of step with his Labor colleagues at both a local level and a federal level on the acceptability of this type of leaking of confidential documents. He is clearly thought to be a loose cannon and not to be trusted with state secrets and confidentialities. Clearly, Mr Stanhope’s ACT colleagues must vote to support this censure motion, otherwise they will be voting against their own integrity and their own dedication to good government and the meaning of confidentiality.
Mr Stanhope has set a precedent whereby he has made it acceptable for all draft-in-confidence documents or legislation to be leaked prematurely to the public. This is unacceptable practice.
Mr Stanhope: Steve, tell us about when you were locked up.
MR PRATT: You can go on about that crap all you like, Jon. The Chief Minister’s behaviour warrants a severe reprimand. It requires a severe reprimand, if not dismissal. Put the documents down or resign, Jon.
I return to my point about the effect of the Chief Minister’s actions in the current security climate. The London bombings have very significantly shaken the thinking of governments and their counter-terrorism experts across the Western and developed world. It is now clear that the threat from al-Qaeda-inspired terrorism is not just external and that the internal threat is likely to be more profound than at first thought. It is very
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