Page 14 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 14 February 2012
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MS GALLAGHER: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am sure the issues I go to around staff arrangements are covered off in the motion, where we are seeking assurance from the Leader of the Opposition that people who are employed to work on Assembly business in the Leader of the Opposition’s office actually are fulfilling those responsibilities. That is part of the motion, and we will await further information from the Leader of the Opposition.
It is no surprise to me that the Liberal Party will seek to spread this issue across every office in this place, but the advice to me is that 16 out of 17 members get their processes right. That is the advice that I understand to be the case. I certainly can rule out the possibility that any member of the Labor Party has had two to three years of warnings from anyone around adherence to administrative process in their office. In fact, when the Auditor-General came in and had a look at these processes a number of years ago, I was informed that my office led the way in terms of adherence to time sheets within the building.
But the issue here will be that the Liberal Party will seek to try and spread this out to be a systems issue. It is not a systems issue. They are issues that have been raised around compliance and other related matters which sit firmly and squarely within the Leader of the Opposition’s office. To try and spread the blame is an obvious tactic and one that we expected, but this motion keeps the issue focused on where the concerns have been raised.
In relation to any statements that I have made publicly or indeed in a media statement, I have reviewed those and I do not believe there are any unsubstantiated claims that I would need to correct the record over in any of the comments I have made. As I said, this is not an issue of anyone else’s making but that of the Leader of the Opposition. Yes, it is embarrassing and yes, he can say, “Well, I’m sorry and now I’ve got my house in order.” But the documents released under freedom of information require the Assembly to ask further questions and require the Assembly to take further action, and that is what this motion seeks to do today.
MR HANSON (Molonglo) (10.50): Let us be very clear about what has happened and what is happening here today. Administrative errors have been made in Mr Seselja’s office and he has been very clear in acknowledging those. Those issues have been rectified. Indeed, Ms Hunter said on the radio this morning that they have been cleared.
But let us also acknowledge what is happening here this morning. This is a deliberate political attack by the Greens and by the Labor Party on the Liberal Party. That is exactly what is occurring today. Let us be very clear, because if you listen to what Mr Hargreaves said, what Ms Gallagher said and what Ms Hunter said, there is a confected outrage. There is some confected outrage that the president of the Liberal Party works in Mr Seselja’s office. Somehow that seems to be immoral. If you read what Ms Gallagher said in her press release, she said that Mr Seselja doing that shows “someone whose moral and ethical compass is completely directionless”. That is a quote from her press release.
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