Page 5415 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 16 November 2011
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RSPCA which could be regarded as a slur—nothing. He merely went to the newspaper and corrected, as best he knew, what the situation was. He has relied on advice from his department—
Mr Doszpot interjecting—
MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Mr Doszpot, you are now warned.
MR HARGREAVES: It is the practice that the minister, having received information, if it is challenged in this place, will go back to the department where the resources are to check something. If a minister repeatedly receives the same information, of course, he is going to come in here and do exactly what the attorney did and say that, to the best of his knowledge, on the advice that he has received, this is the case.
When it transpired that that was not the case, Madam Assistant Speaker—and I ask you to remember what the attorney said; he received the advice late last night that the information was incorrect—at the first opportunity he had today to correct that record the attorney stood up in this place, put the story on the table and apologised to this place. That is what we expect anybody who has given incorrect information to this place, whether it be the crossbench, the opposition or the government, to do. The courteous thing ought to be that the moment you know that incorrect information has been given, you correct the record. That happened instantly.
All ministers rely on the advice of their departments. They are working particularly hard, and if they get it wrong and correct the record—fine; we will need to accept that. They do get it wrong occasionally. The opposition are not only casting aspersions on this minister but also casting aspersions on the department. I do not think that is fair and reasonable. You cannot expect any more of anybody in this place—that they would stand up in this place and correct the record and then apologise. I have seen those opposite get it wrong and they have stood up here and corrected the record, but have they apologised? I do not think so. They have not. Mr Corbell said it exactly like that: “I apologise to the house.” That, Madam Assistant Speaker, should have been the end of it.
I note that this in fact was all prearranged prior to question time starting. This was all prearranged with conversations between Mr Coe and Mr Smyth and Mr Coe and Mr Seselja before question time started. It was at that time Mr Corbell actually rose to correct the record and to apologise. Their whole scenario was set in train long before Mr Corbell actually apologised for the mislead. On that basis, Madam Assistant Speaker, it made no difference to their position whether Mr Corbell apologised or not. This is rank politics to be dealt with.
MS HUNTER (Ginninderra—Parliamentary Leader, ACT Greens) (3.49): The ACT Greens will not be supporting the censure motion today. I find it interesting that we have Mr Coe saying that he wants members to think long and hard about this censure motion when it was placed on our desks five minutes before this debate started. That is hardly time to consider what the issues would be.
I will go to the heart of the matter here and the issues. This censure motion is about the minister, Mr Corbell, persistently misleading the Assembly and the community
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