Page 3713 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 26 August 2009
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Mr Stanhope: I raise a point of order, Madam Assistant Speaker.
MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ms Le Couteur): Stop the clock, please.
Mr Stanhope: That is a complete absurdity. Mr Smyth really should withdraw allegations that I did not support my colleague. I supported him fully. It is simply not true. It confirms the position I put, that we actually should judge, need to judge, the members of the Liberal Party by their own standards. They need to tell the truth.
MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Mr Stanhope, there is no point of order. Points of order should be about procedure rather than the substantive content of a speech. Mr Smyth, please continue. Start the clock.
MR SMYTH: It came after Mr Corbell’s speech, in which Mr Corbell admits there is a mislead, but says, “It is just politics, so it is okay.”
Mr Barr: He did not. That is number two. Thirty seconds in and you have done it twice.
Mr Stanhope: I raise a point of order, Madam Assistant Speaker.
Opposition members interjecting—
MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Stop the clock. Members of the opposition, I cannot hear the Chief Minister.
Mr Stanhope: The transcript will reveal that Mr Corbell did no such thing and said no such thing. Mr Corbell simply did not say that. As Mr Barr interjects, that is simply not true. You have made two misstatements of fact in 30 seconds.
MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Mr Stanhope, again, I cannot see a point of order. Mr Smyth, please start again. Start the clock.
MR SMYTH: Madam Assistant Speaker, Mr Corbell’s explanation was that maybe he had gone too far. Tacitly this is a misrepresentation; it is a mislead—it was just politics and therefore it should go away. The theory of this place may be one thing. But what Mr Barr did was take something that Mr Doszpot had said, put it on ministerial letterhead, twist it so completely that it bore no resemblance to the truth at all and then sent it out to people, purporting to be something that it was not. That is the problem.
Then Mr Barr exacerbates the problem by writing a letter. He is good at this. He projects. It is very Lathamesque. It is the sort of behaviour that Mark Latham used to indulge in. He would accuse people of things that he had done himself. Mr Barr writes this letter to Mr Doszpot and says, “On 30 April you demanded that I use the Human Rights Act to ensure that the review also did these things.” Mr Doszpot did no such thing. Mr Barr invents the story and then promulgates the story as the truth.
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