Page 4009 - Week 09 - Thursday, 26 August 2010
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MR CORBELL: As the Chief Minister has indicated, the minister has come down to this place, accepted that an error has been made and corrected the record. That is her obligation under the code of conduct. It does not say that you have got to grovel to the Liberal Party. It does not say that you have got to use a certain word to make it satisfactory on the part of the Liberal Party. The obligation on the part of the minister is to correct the record, and that is what the minister has done. Anything other than that is simply absolute nonsense being spouted by those opposite.
This censure motion has no basis. The minister has recognised that an error was made in her comments, and she has corrected the record. That is her obligation from the code of conduct. The censure motion has no standing. It is simply a political attack, one done without any due regard to the conventions of this place. It has absolutely no credibility, and the minister has done what she was required to do.
MR SESELJA (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (10.35): I want to briefly touch on a couple of the issues that have been raised because there is some spin going on in the positions of both the minister and the Greens on this. I would like to address both.
From what we heard from the Greens, I think they acknowledge that the minister misled. The minister, in her own special way, eventually acknowledged, in one form or another, that she misled. She has not been particularly gracious about that in the way that she has acknowledged that, but I want to go to why we have got to this point.
It should be the position of ministers that they want to correct the record if they get it wrong. There is a positive obligation. If you mislead and it is brought to your attention, then, if you take integrity seriously, if you take honesty in this place seriously, you want to correct the record as soon as possible. Most members at some point would have made inadvertent errors, and most of us will come in and correct.
What happened here though was that we had a clear case of misleading. It was not just once; it was not accidental. It is very difficult to make that case when you are answering a dorothy dixer. When you are answering a dorothy dixer, you repeat it. You arrogantly attack your opponent about it. That does not look accidental to me. So I think we can all agree that the minister acted inappropriately on 19 August in giving misleading information to the Assembly. It appears that we agree on that point.
Mr Coe then followed a process. Mr Coe did not get up on 20 August without notice and move to censure the minister. Mr Coe went through a process. He communicated with the minister’s office and said, “I think you are wrong.” Then he got an answer that confirmed the minister was wrong. Then he came into this place two days ago and asked for a correction. I am not sure what better process you could use or how much more warning you could be given when you get it wrong.
The right thing for the minister to have done on Tuesday would have been to have said, “I was wrong. I apologise. I withdraw.” And we would have moved on. That would have been the end of it. We have been forced to move a motion because the minister refused.
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