Page 59 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 28 February 2007
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
What the Chief Minister is now apparently saying is that “Blame me” was really just a distraction designed to win him approval at the time. His actions since this statement bear this out. This is the standard which Jon Stanhope held Kate Carnell to:
Words, of course, are empty without action to back them, and what has the Chief Minister done to discharge the responsibility that she says she accepts, the acceptance she has repeated like a mantra? The answer is that she has done nothing. That failure to act is central to the motion that we are debating today. The Chief Minister says that she accepts responsibility, but she has done nothing. In contemporary political life, arrogance and politicians are often linked. But the Chief Minister, in her failure to discharge the responsibility that she says she bears, has displayed an arrogance that almost defies description.
Chief Minister, what have you done to take responsibility? The Chief Minister’s words in 2003 were all about taking responsibility; since then his actions have been about avoiding it. Despite what Mr Stanhope now says, the coroner agrees that he did fail to do what was required of him. The coroner says that he is to blame.
This government came to office on the promise of open and accountable government. This, coupled with the Chief Minister’s statement at the time of the bushfires—to blame him—should have given the community confidence that the government would be open to thorough investigation into this matter. The opposite is true.
When things started to get a bit tough, when the coroner’s inquest did not appear to be going as the government would have liked, the government tried to get rid of the coroner. After announcing the inquest in 2003, the Chief Minister said that there would be “no stone unturned in examining the actions of all agencies and emergency services management”. He said:
There will be a close and uncompromising inquiry into every decision or action taken by everyone involved with the fire.
What happened when the Chief Minister did not like what was found? He attempted to shut the inquiry down. And this despite the assurances given by the Chief Minister himself when answering a question from Mr Stefaniak: he said, “The government intends to fully cooperate with the inquiry.” Perhaps the answer should have been: “The government intends to fully cooperate with the inquiry until it produces information we do not like, until it does not suit us to support it any further.”
The government, without any factual justification, claimed that the coroner was biased. It impugned her integrity. We still have not seen the legal advice which led to this action. The Attorney-General launched an unprecedented legal action to remove his own coroner and essentially kill the inquest off, or significantly delay it. The conflict between the Chief Minister as a witness and his role as Attorney-General was obvious to all. The attempt was comprehensively rejected by the Supreme Court. It was found to be without merit. We need to ask ourselves what would have happened if the action to remove the coroner had been successful. It is most likely that victims of the bushfires would still be waiting for closure. That seems to have been the intention.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .