Page 5269 - Week 12 - Thursday, 28 October 2010
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The Chief Minister’s office then put conditions. “You can come and you can see but you cannot take notes. You cannot hold it. You cannot touch it.” When times were sought to be arranged, those times were denied. Why do you not tell the full story, for a change? It is all that we get from Mr Corbell. It is interesting that he is the only member to be found to have persistently and wilfully misled the Assembly. Why the secrecy? That is the question for the government. Why the secrecy?
We have heard so often in the last two years from the Greens about the new paradigm, about consensus, about working together. Indeed this bill says, “The Assembly must work together to deliver the outcome.” It is implicit in the decision to have a two-thirds majority that there must be discussion. It is not an executive appointment. “Here, we have made a decision,” drop it on the table, off you go. It is not an executive appointment in that sense. It is a decision. It is a decision of the Assembly. It is a two-thirds decision of the Assembly.
Members interjecting—
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Members will come to order. Conversations across the chamber are not on.
MR SMYTH: If you do not understand what a two-thirds decision of the Assembly means, go back and read the act. It has to come to this place. You would have thought the government would at least try to reach some consensus before we got to the position that we got to today.
Now we see the strange position where, if the Greens are consulted or suggest or agree, it is okay, but if the Liberals have an opinion on a matter, that is not allowed. That is the new paradigm. But it strikes me that the new paradigm is not very different from the old paradigm where the Greens-Labor coalition will decide what they want and will not negotiate. But they have come a cropper on this one, because everyone agreed that there should be a two-thirds majority. So it is different from probably every other executive appointment that we have outlined in legislation passed by this place. The case is quite clear. If people do not get the case then they really need to go back and look at themselves.
Ms Le Couteur, 10, 15 or 20 minutes ago now, got up and said that because of the discussion, three sides working together, she would stand aside as the chair of the public accounts committee. She does not believe she has a conflict of interest but, to avoid the perception of a conflict of interest and keep matters above board, she has taken this course and I will now handle the inquiry into ethical investment. That is a good process. That is a proper process.
But we could not even get into the process in this regard because the Chief Minister and his office refused us. Give the would-be Chief Minister her due, she at least came down and spoke to the Leader of the Opposition to try to get this to work a little better. But at the end of the day, bound to the party that she is a member of, it is the old crash or crash through process that the Labor Party knows.
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