Page 836 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 16 March 2010
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In relation to my answers to the Assembly, Ross, the question was couched in terms of documents relating to the administration of the scheme. Well, we don’t administer the scheme.
That is the second persistent and wilful misleading. It is a lie to say, “We don’t have documents relating to the scheme.” That is not what he was asked. He was asked:
Minister, can you or your colleagues table any and all documents relating to the commonwealth government’s home insulation program …
It does not talk about the regulation or the administration; it talks about all of the documents. The minister misled the Assembly when he said:
The government does not have any documents …
He goes on to say:
I think the members opposite are going to need to be a bit more specific with their request.
Well, the question was quite specific—any and all. What Mr Corbell does is rely on the old Labor Party adage of never explain, never apologise, never resign. The Greens are now allowing him to get away with this. That is the shame of this day. We see the true colours out here today. We see the Greens-Labor alliance is stronger and much more important than the safety of the people of the ACT. We see the Greens-Labor alliance is more important than integrity in this place. You only have to go to the government’s own code of conduct, where it says:
… ministers are to recognise the importance of full and true disclosure—
full and true—
and accountability to the Parliament.
What did the minister say? “We have no documents.” Full and true. “We have no documents of any kind.” That was the question: “What have you got?” “We have no documents.” The code continues:
Being answerable to the Assembly requires Ministers to ensure that they do not wilfully mislead the Assembly in respect of their Ministerial responsibilities.
He did it on the day; he did it when he came back and made his abject apology; and he has done it again this morning. The ministerial code of conduct—which the Chief Minister might like to comment on about its application and how he sees it—goes on to say:
Ministers should take reasonable steps to ensure the factual content of statements they make in the Assembly are soundly based and that they correct any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity.
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