Page 1281 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 27 March 2012
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I have sought advice from the Clerk, members. Obviously it is a pretty quick turnaround. Sadly, the Clerk and the Speaker missed the fact. In fact, the Clerk said to me that he was unaware of the debate of the 16th. I think he can be excused. He was not here, I believe. Maybe he was. Anyway, he missed it, as did the Speaker, and as probably did Mr Corbell. But let me be very clear. On that day the same offence was committed. If we have committed an offence, so has Ms Gallagher. And the Clerk’s advice to me was that Ms Gallagher’s comments, he agrees, were not helpful. (Time expired.)
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Hanson, are you going to move your amendment?
MR HANSON: I move:
Add:
“(4) express its grave concern at the breach of the sub judice convention by Ms Gallagher (Chief Minister) in her comments to the Assembly of 16 August 2011 concerning the two individuals charged with damaging property and trespass at the CSIRO Ginninderra Research Facility.”.
MS BRESNAN (Brindabella) (11.32): In speaking to the motion I will also refer briefly to Mr Hanson’s amendment. We have heard the word “hypocritical” mentioned a lot. If we want to talk about being hypocritical, we do not need to look any further than the Canberra Liberals on this issue. What we have heard today, basically, is that it is okay for them to pass judgement on individuals before the court—that is fine—but no-one else can do it. It is okay for them to do that. It does not matter about the standing rules that apply. They are allowed to do that.
I would just like to remind them of a matter that was before the Assembly in 2009, when Mr Corbell had made comments about an incident at the Belconnen Remand Centre. I remind the Canberra Liberals that these were actually comments made outside the chamber—given that Mr Seselja and Mr Hanson have both talked a lot today about making comments outside the chamber—and that the Greens supported the motion against Mr Corbell. I would like to go to some of the comments in Mrs Dunne’s speech on this matter. It is worth pointing out a number of those comments because I believe it is relevant to the debate we are having today. First off, Mrs Dunne said:
Those of us who are elected to this place have the highest demands of good conduct placed upon us. Like Caesar’s wife, our actions need to be beyond reproach. And if we make an error, it is imperative that we own up to that error and unreservedly apologise and do what we can to set matters right. It is no good to bustle about pretending that nothing has happened and hoping that people will forget about it.
We are here today because one of our number has failed to live up to these high standards and these demands. These standards were reinforced, albeit begrudgingly, by the Stanhope government. A few weeks ago the first law officer of the ACT—the Attorney-General, Simon Corbell—went out of his way
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