Page 1653 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 1 May 2012
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take responsibility. It does require you to fix problems. It does require you to admit mistakes have been made. It does require you to support those who have been affected. It does require you to inform the community of what you know. It does require you to act with integrity, to use your best judgement, to act at all times with the community’s best interests at the core of your decision making. That is what leaders must do. That is what I have tried to do in this case.
Mr Hanson has made a number of allegations throughout the course of the past week. He accuses me of all sorts of wrongdoing—without any evidence, of course, to back this up, and without any facts. But who cares when you are trying to damage and smear somebody’s reputation? Not Mr Hanson. He has skated very close to defamatory language, but, like a true coward who cannot actually substantiate what he is alleging, he withdraws—
Mr Seselja: On a point of order.
MR SPEAKER: Stop the clocks, thank you. Yes, Mr Seselja.
Mr Seselja: We know the Chief Minister is into mud-slinging, but she should withdraw that. If she wants to say it, she can say it outside the chamber.
MR SPEAKER: Chief Minister, I ask that you withdraw the unparliamentary language.
MS GALLAGHER: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I will withdraw the word “coward”. He has skated—
Mr Hanson: Ironic that she’s talking about me mud-slinging while mud-slinging herself.
MS GALLAGHER: Well, from the greatest mud-slinger of them all.
MR SPEAKER: Order! Let us just continue, thank you, Chief Minister.
MS GALLAGHER: He has skated close to defamatory language, but he cannot actually substantiate what he is alleging and he withdraws just in time. Mr Hanson accuses me of lying, misleading and hiding the fact that there was a personal connection with a family member of mine. A fact that Mr Hanson ignores—
Mr Hanson interjecting—
MS GALLAGHER: A fact that Mr Hanson continues to ignore is that at my first press conference on this subject I told journalists that I knew the official involved. My immediate response to this issue being raised with me by the Health Directorate was to get to the bottom of what we knew and make sure processes were underway to stop it occurring again, getting an understanding of what impact this data irregularity had on the waiting times and informing the public of what we knew.
The fact that a staff member at the centre of these allegations is a friend of a family member of mine created another level of complexity in terms of my own
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