Page 1273 - Week 05 - Thursday, 31 May 2007
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Omit all words after the word “censure”, substitute “Mrs Vicki Dunne for misleading the Assembly in her question to the Chief Minister on Tuesday, 29 May 2007.”.
Mrs Dunne misled this Assembly on Tuesday in her question to me. I drew the fact of the errors contained in her question to her attention. I indicated in question time that I would review the Hansard and give consideration to coming back to move a substantive motion. I suggested in that context that she might wish to correct the record. I suggested it too to Mr Seselja. Mr Seselja responded in the terms just put to us most eloquently by the Leader of the Opposition—that a member has an obligation, upon advertently or otherwise misleading the Assembly, to correct the record.
Mr Stefaniak, in his presentation on this debate, has made the case for why Mrs Dunne should be censured. I drew it to her attention directly. I suggested that I would review the Hansard and come back to consider a substantive motion. I suggested that the record be corrected at the time. Mr Seselja stood in that context and corrected the record. He did what I suggested would be appropriate in the circumstance and what would be consistent with what Mr Stefaniak so eloquently, in his quotations from Erskine May and House of Representatives Practice, suggested was appropriate behaviour for members of this place—stand and correct the record. Mr Seselja did that. He stood with integrity and corrected an inadvertent misleading of the house at the time. He acted appropriately. Mrs Dunne does not believe that any of these rules, protocols or conventions apply to her; she is above that.
The record is clear in relation to the amendment I have moved. I received a question from Mr Stefaniak around the source of water. I said that the source of water was the lower Molonglo. Mrs Dunne interjected:
So you decided not to use an illegal bore?
I responded:
I stand by my answer: water from the lower Molonglo has been utilised in the planting of the trees.
Mrs Dunne then asked a question. In the preamble to her question she said, “You have made a decision, against advice, to plant trees.” I received no such advice not to plant trees. That was not true. She said:
… you announced that you were using water from the lower Molonglo water quality control plant to water those plants and that you were not going to proceed with a bore …
The only reference to not proceeding with a bore in question time on Tuesday was Mrs Dunne’s suggestion in an interjection to an answer to a question from the Leader of the Opposition. Mrs Dunne interjected:
So you decided not to use an illegal bore?
Mrs Dunne came back and said:
… you announced … that you were not going to proceed with a bore which would have been in contravention of the 2005 bore moratorium.
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