Page 854 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 20 March 2012
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concern that the notification should have been done and was not, but we accept that there were extenuating circumstances involved in this. And I take Ms Le Couteur’s point.
I think this is a matter of smoke and mirrors. This is all about the opposition’s relevance deprivation and trying to create a distraction and yet another censure. I believe that this opposition has done more in its term in this Assembly to devalue the notion of a censure motion than in all of the time I have been here. If anything deserves a motion of grave concern, it is the fact that those opposite seem incapable of going into a sitting period without having a censure motion or better delivered against one or other of the ministers. I think they ought to sit back and think about the seriousness of this and say whether or not the sort of stuff they keep bringing forward warrants a censure motion.
I also say this, Mr Speaker: they ought to also consider that they sit in a glass house. They ought to be careful where they hurl their rocks. They ought to be very careful, because he or she who lives by the sword can very well die by it.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (10.42): I can count the numbers. Clearly the amendment will get up. Mr Hargreaves started by saying it is a distraction. Mr Hargreaves, if you follow that through, thinks it is a distraction to break the law and to hold the lawbreaker to account. It is not a distraction; it is one of the functions of this place to hold the executive to account. And when they break the law, the Canberra Liberals will do their job and hold them to account. The motto of the territory is “for the Queen, the law and the people”. First and foremost, we should be upholding the law in this place.
We now have some interesting levels. For one breaking of the law you get a grave concern; for 24 breakings of the law you get censured. So what is no confidence? Is it double again? Is it 48, or perhaps it is parabolic. Maybe it is 96 breakings of the law. It is interesting that we have that sort of approach from the Greens.
I go back to my being censured for the tone of a press release. So there is a sliding scale here, and it slides all over the place. I got censured—which I wear as a badge of honour, I have to say—for the tone of a press release. The minister is having grave concern found in his performance for breaking the law. The Greens might reflect on that.
I welcome the minister’s apology for the delay. The minister could have made that statement in February. The minister could have written to the committee and said: “It’s running late. Here’s a couple of reasons.” But we did not get that. And that is why the behaviour has been contemptuous of the committee process. The government wanted their bill. We have got Labor members telling the community the reason they cannot have their bill is that the Greens and the Liberals are holding it up. The reason it is being held up is that the minister did not do his job and, in doing so, broke the law. That is why it is being held up. I expect that Mr Barr’s office will contact Mr Leigh’s office so that they can send their constituents an email saying, “Well, actually, the truth of the matter is the committee hasn’t reported because the government didn’t do its job in a timely fashion.” I think that record should be corrected, and I look forward to hearing—
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