Page 2479 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 17 June 2009
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could you not do that? It is interesting in the ministerial code of conduct that it does talk about informing the Assembly. But yet again, we do not have a minister who is willing to do that. Under “Respect for Persons” in section 3, it says:
Ministers will treat other Members of the Legislative Assembly, members of the public and other officials honestly and fairly, with proper regard for their personal dignity, rights, entitlements, duties and obligations, and should at all times act responsively—
it says “responsively”—
in the performance of their public duties.
He was asked to come back to the committee and respond to things that he had said, and he chose not to do that. A second breach of the ministerial code of conduct, and we are going to dismiss this as an admonishment. I am not sure why this bar is being set so low. It is certainly not a standard that is adhered to in other places, and it is very, very important that we send a signal that this sort of behaviour will not be tolerated. Until this estimates committee, it was not tolerated. Until this estimates committee, very senior ministers—the Deputy Chief Minister and a Chief Minister—understood their obligation.
Westminster is about responsibility to the parliament, responding to the parliament. This select committee, set up by the unanimous vote of the Assembly, was the tool of the Assembly to scrutinise this bill.
Ms Gallagher: But it is not in it.
MR SMYTH: The car park is in the bill. So there is no appropriation for the planning? There is no appropriation for ACTPLA? It is an interesting standard that we get to, Mr Speaker. Go back to the conventions. Go back to the House of Representatives. Look at the practice of the House of Representatives. Faulkner and Ray—two Labor senators—have turned this into a fine art to get to the bottom of matters, to inquire, to find out.
What this minister says, through his cowardice, through to his inability to return, through his failure to return, is, “I can thumb my nose at the Assembly and its institutions, because I know I will get away with it.” He will get away with it today. The standard is now set. You do not have to come back, because all that you are going to get is a slap on the wrist. It is an admonishment—just an admonishment.
Who cares? The minister did not care. The minister knows he is getting away with it. That is the problem when we set the bar too low. These are fundamental issues. The sins that are unforgivable in many cases are: misleading the Assembly, lying to the Assembly and not showing respect for the Assembly. But we have just got rid of one of those today, because if you choose not to respond to the committee system, all you get is admonished. That is a shame.
Ms Gallagher talked yesterday about new lows in the Assembly. An admonishment for this sets the lowest standard in this country, probably under Westminster systems
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