Page 19 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 14 February 2012
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MR HANSON: Certainly. Let us talk about the incompetence of administration in ministers’ offices. What about all of the late questions that we get? How many late questions have we got? I can see a whole series of them from Ms Gallagher. All of them are only followed up once we ask in this place. What about letters that are due within 30 days? Let us see how many have been late. Just in the last year, Ms Gallagher had five letters late; Mr Corbell, 14 letters late. We had to follow him up two times on one and three times on another letter. If you want to look at administration of offices, if that does not include the administration of ministries then what does it include? So Madam Assistant Speaker—
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Deputy, actually.
MR HANSON: Madam Deputy Speaker, what we have seen here today is rank political opportunism. We have seen hypocrisy. If the government and the Greens do not open their doors to a similar review, a similar audit as being demanded by the Labor Party then what we are seeing is simple politics in an election year. It is nothing more, nothing less. It is hypocrisy.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (11.02): I move:
(1) In subparagraph 6(a), insert after “staffing arrangements” the words “for all staff of Ministers and Members of the ACT Legislative Assembly”.
(2) In subparagraph 6(a), omit all words after “inappropriate payments”, substitute “were made to staff during the period of the Seventh Assembly”.
The Chief Minister said a large part of this motion was based on rumours. She used the word “rumours”—there are “rumours”. I refer the Chief Minister to her own ministerial code of conduct, which says:
Ministers should take reasonable steps to ensure the factual content of statements they make in the Assembly is soundly based …
Nothing we have heard from those opposite this morning is soundly based in fact. The allegations and the slur are easy. It is quite amusing when you look at what happened on Friday. There she was with a glint in her eye and a smile on her face and she could not wait to get in front of those cameras to throw the slur and put the hyperbole out. But what we see today is that reality has caught up with the Chief Minister’s hyperbole. What we see today is actually a reflection on the office of the Speaker and the office of the Clerk. The Chief Minister said that assurance is required. Do you not trust the Speaker? Do you not trust the processes of the Clerk? That is where the slur is today.
Indeed, as pointed out, Ms Hunter said on the radio this morning that this thing has been cleared up. Well, if this thing has been cleared up to the satisfaction of the Clerk and the Speaker, what are we doing here this morning? I will tell you what we are doing: we are doing politics. And politics, of course, is the business of places of assemblies and parliaments, and let us not have any doubt about this—this is not about an attempt to get to the truth, because we have got to the truth. Ms Hunter told
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