Page 3879 - Week 10 - Thursday, 27 August 2009
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Ms Gallagher: Is that in the members code, too?
MR SMYTH: Well, I am not sure. I am talking about your code; I am talking about the ministerial code. You go and get my code out and you check it for me. This is the code that you have signed up to: ministers will uphold the laws of the Australian Capital Territory and Australia and will not be party to their breach, evasion or subversion. So the minister says, “I am aware of concerns that have been raised. All I have to do is to send it off to the bit I am responsible for.” There is an inherent conflict. She has sent a document about her party to an organisation for which she is responsible—the Gambling and Racing Commission. We have the conflict of interest there, but we will get back to that in a minute. She said, “I am not responsible for corporate law. I am not responsible for tax law.” Well, who is? Ministers will uphold the laws of the Australian Capital Territory and Australia.
Which minister here will uphold the laws of Australia? It will not be the Treasurer, because she said she will not. It is not the Attorney-General, because he has bolted. He has done nothing about it, although he is not in the loop. He did not get the letter. Mr Barr got the letter. But give the Treasurer her due, she at least forwarded the letter. I have praised the Treasurer on a couple of things, and I will do it again. She at least forwarded the letter to the commissioner. Mr Barr got it and did nothing. Where is Mr Barr in this? Where is Mr Barr upholding the laws of the Australian Capital Territory and Australia? Absent, missing—same as the Chief Minister. Did the Chief Minister, who has overall responsibility for the ACT, abide by his own code of conduct and uphold the laws of the Australian Capital Territory and Australia? Apparently not. That is what is wrong here. That is why this referral to the public accounts committee should be endorsed by the Assembly today.
We know it is not the Treasurer. We know the Attorney-General is irrelevant; he does not even get the letter. We know that Mr Barr has not said anything. We know that the Chief Minister will not even come down and tell us his part in the whole fiasco. You have to question why he will not tell us that. Perhaps it is Mr Hargreaves who is going to uphold the laws of the Australian Capital Territory and Australia. No, no, he said it is not his bloody business. He said to the CEO of the Gambling and Racing Commission that it is not his bloody business. That is what Mr Hargreaves thinks about this. However, it is his business. That is what he is there for. You have got this conflict between the Treasurer and Mr Hargreaves and, again, this is the problem.
This is so unclear; this is murky. The chief lines are run out: it is the Liberal Party just making politics out of this. It is not. We did not raise these issues; they were raised by a member of the Labor Party; they were raised by the President of the Labor Club Group. He said, “I am concerned at the actions of the Labor Party, their administration committee, the national office.” We should all be concerned about this. It would appear that only the Liberal Party are concerned today about the broader, far-reaching implications of what is going on and the lack of activity of the government, who are charged by their own ministerial code of conduct to uphold the laws of Australia, which they are refusing to do. The Treasurer just washed her hands of it and said, “Done my bit. I just sent it to the bit that I can control.”
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