Page 1268 - Week 05 - Thursday, 31 May 2007
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giants over here—that the issue is about bullying in the schools. That is what she is talking about. This issue that we are talking about today has got nothing to do with that. It is about a breach in protocol. The point is that the Greens over here are going off and saying, “We’ve got some serious issues on our plate about bullying.” We all agree with that. Welcome to the real world, Dr Foskey. Maybe it is a sign of her maturity in this place that she has finally woken up to it. Maybe it is not.
Let us go back a little on this. The issues as I read them—as they have come across in the speeches—are these. Was the minister aware of incidents happening in the schools? Yes, he was. Was the minister aware of there being a breach of protocol? Mrs Dunne says yes, he was, and he should have said so. The minister in fact has advised this chamber that his advice from his department was that there was no flagrant breach of the protocol.
Mr Mulcahy: Flagrant.
MR HARGREAVES: No, Mr Speaker, I do not pick up the idiot ramblings of the shadow Treasurer and accent the word “flagrant” at all. There was no accent on my use of the word “flagrant” at all. The minister has shown this Assembly that his advice from the department was consistent with what he said yesterday in question time. There has been no rebuttal of that proof at all.
What we are seeing is the creation of a straw man by Mrs Dunne at the expense of people out there who want to put this matter about the schools to rest. In fact, the minister has advised this place that the parents and the children involved actually want to get on with it now. And what do we do? What do we actually achieve by raising it in this place in this form? Mrs Dunne could easily have come back in question time today to elicit more information. Did she do so? No, she did not. Mrs Dunne could easily have picked up the telephone and rung the minister, who gives quite liberal access, and find out what was going on. No. What she did was tell the minister at 10 o’clock this morning, “Unless you do what I say, there is a censure motion on.” Calling on the minister to contradict the truth is not the sort of thing that we do.
I ask also the Assembly to consider this. What on earth did Mrs Dunne expect to achieve by this censure motion? What on earth would we achieve? There is no advantage to the kids in the school who are receiving bullying attention. There was no advantage to the parents in that. All it is is self-aggrandisement or perhaps some misguided idea of championing a cause—in which case the cause is wrong.
If, in fact, we were talking about the minister’s handling of an incident and whether it was appropriate or not, that would be a different subject, a different conversation. But we are not. We are talking about the so-called knowledge of the minister that there had been a breach of protocol. No such knowledge existed. Quite to the contrary: proof has been provided to this Assembly that his advice was that there was no breach of the protocol.
One of the things that were asserted was that the presence of the police showed that there was a breach of protocol. I might argue that in fact the presence of the police can, if one wants to take it that way, show the opposite. But there is nothing conclusive.
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