Page 1017 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 30 March 2011
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Effectively, this minister will be calling each of these brave people who have spoken out liars. She will be calling them liars. What has she done? We will give her leave to speak again to tell us what she has done to investigate these serious claims. What kind of minister does not immediately institute an investigation into claims of a corruption of process as serious as this? Why does the minister not want to get to the bottom of it?
It comes back, I think, to that culture of cover up that we are seeing that comes right from the top. In reading Trish McEwan’s open letter to the Chief Minister yesterday, there are so many things of concern in that letter and we do not have time to go through all of them. We did raise a number of them in question time yesterday and got, I think, a lack of genuine response. But what is apparent in Trish McEwan’s open letter is the fact that she and others have been trying to get an outcome. They have been trying to get something happening and we see at every level they get let down by the government.
You can go through it. Originally, Trish went to Minister Burch. Of course, the complaints were ignored. She was referred off to the human rights commissioner. Mr Barr ignored the complaints. Then we had the judicial inquiry that was called for and that was watered down. Then the inquirer leaked personal information. The inquirer actually leaked personal information.
What kind of confidence can be had? She expresses her concern that the Attorney-General then went and made light of that letter. This was the Attorney-General. So you have got the minister in charge blocking her ears and not doing anything; you have got the education minister not taking an interest; you have got the inquirer leaking confidential information; and you have got the Attorney-General endorsing that leak, making light of that leak. What possible confidence could anyone have in a process that has become such a sham?
Mr Speaker, this does come back to a couple of fundamental questions, which is why there does need to be a full judicial inquiry. It comes back to the culture of cover up that is emerging by the day. The more this is talked about, the more people come out of the woodwork and talk about the fact that the process has been corrupted, the more we see that they have been guided in their evidence, that they have been asked not to go. We have got documentary evidence saying there will be a strategy. At every level we see inaction or we see cover up from this Labor government.
There is a culture across this government. We have seen it in health; we see it here again. It is a culture of bullying and a culture of cover up. They get it wrong; they bully staff and then when they get called on it, after initial denial from ministers, as is always the case, they then seek to cover it up.
We have seen it in health, Mr Speaker, and now we are unfortunately seeing it again. But it does come back to that fundamental question: if this process is really working well, if this process is really capable of getting to the truth, then why are so many people coming out and saying exactly the opposite? What do these people have to gain
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