Page 4006 - Week 09 - Thursday, 26 August 2010
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challenged on what you said, the form of Westminster is that the minister comes back and either defends or comes back and corrects and apologises.
Now, Ms Burch was called to account. This is not just since 9.30 or 9.45 this morning; this started on 19 August. This has now been going for a week. In that time, I have not heard Ms Burch come down here and say, “I apologise to the Assembly for inadvertently misleading them or deliberately misleading them or misleading them in any form.” You only have to go the ministerial code of conduct to see that the code of conduct is quite clear, and the code of conduct is not being adhered to in this case.
If the Greens do not believe in applying the code of conduct, that is fine—you will be known by the way you behave. I refer to page 2, which refers to conformity to the principles of accountability and financial and collective responsibility:
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.
Now this question, this dixer, was asked on 19 August. So any time between 19 August and now when that inadvertent—let us call it inadvertent—error was brought to the attention of Ms Burch—it has been now on several occasions in this place, by email and by letter—she had an obligation to come down and correct the record. She should also apologise.
I refer members to Ms Gallagher’s response when I challenged her on a fact last year. Ms Gallagher said basically, “You didn’t do this.” I said, “Yes, we did. Go and check the record.” She went away and checked the record, and she came down here at the earliest possible time, which is 10 o’clock in the morning, and she said, “I apologise to the Assembly. Mr Smyth, you got it right; I was wrong.” End of matter. Members will remember that I stood and I thanked Ms Gallagher for her graciousness in correcting the record, because that is how it should be.
Now if the answer is you can now scurry into the Assembly, read a few words, not withdraw, not apologise and not correct but that is then accepted as an apology, then, Mr Speaker, the Greens are setting a very low bar against the ministerial and Westminster systems of accountability, because that is what is happening here.
What is in dispute? What is in dispute is:
The first site in Macquarie, with some 13 homes, is completed and is currently being allocated.
The homes are not completed. Ms Burch went on to say, “And I can give you the calendar with the red squiggle on it which shows when they were done.” She was not restrained about this; she was crowing about something on which she was wrong.
She was asked again on the 24th and she was sent an email yesterday. There seems to be some dispute—and the benefit of the doubt has been given—but Ms Burch tells us she saw the letter at quarter to 10 this morning when she got out of caucus. The letter
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