Page 275 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 7 March 2007
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Mr Stefaniak’s concern as a resident of western Belconnen on the 17th that he baled out and left town. At this stage I assume that I did not take the call because I did not hear the phone ring. Why I did not hear the phone ring is probably susceptible to a whole range of possibilities—possibilities that at this stage and this juncture have no answer. I do not know what I do not know. I do not know why I did not answer the phone that evening.
In the context of claims that have been made about this as recently as today, particularly by Mr Smyth, I can refute them absolutely—as just completely and blatantly false. Mr Smyth said this morning:
We’ve been asking him to verify where he was and what he was up to because on that night, the night of 17 January, he was the only government minister on duty. He was the government and he should have had the phone on and he should have been taking calls because if a state of emergency had to be declared that night he’s the only person that could do it. Yet they couldn’t find him. He was AWOL, he was absent without leave, nobody could find him, nobody knew where he was till 12.30 the next morning.
That is a complete fabrication. Not a single one of those assertions is true. I did have my phone. I was available. I was contactable. The Emergency Services Authority did not seek to contact me. They did not seek to contact my chief of staff. They did not seek to contact my media adviser. They did not seek to contact a single person in my office. They did not seek to contact the Chief Minister’s Department. There was no attempt to contact me—or my chief of staff, my media adviser or any other of my advisers on that particular evening.
Mr Stefaniak: What about the six-second call then?
MR STANHOPE: Every one of those assertions is simply false. You stand here today and say, “What were you doing at 7.14?” I can think of a range of things—some of them quite private—that I may have done at 7.14 that led me to perhaps miss the phone call.
Do you want me to dwell on those? Do you want me to speculate on those? Do you think that would be helpful to this forensic inquiry of yours—this post-coronial inquest? Of course, it is an issue which was agitated by the coroner. This is a significant vote of no confidence in the coroner by the Liberal Party. I gave a statement. I was called as a witness. I was examined. These issues were raised by counsel assisting—a most significant senior counsel. He raised these issues in his examination of me in the court.
Are you dissatisfied with the coroner’s assessment of these issues? You wish to go where the coroner perhaps went and where the coroner perhaps desisted from further investigation. What is it precisely about the coroner’s examination of this issue that does not satisfy you? You want to revisit the coronial process. You want to express this vote of no confidence in the coroner that you are expressing now. This matter has been agitated. I was available. The fact that I was not contacted that night—nor was my chief of staff, my media adviser et al—is a complete vindication of the position which I and my colleagues have been putting about the advice available to us: about the advice available to us on the Friday night—
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .