Page 1074 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 6 May 2014
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reference to the minutes. Forgive for responding in the heat of the debate in the manner that I did. Yes, I was in error. I have corrected that error and I have apologised to the Assembly for that error when I asserted that the minutes were available online.
I was in error, but in the heat of the debate, in responding to an interjection and conscious of the fact that that material was on the document presented by Mr Gentleman, that is what I said. But the facts are that Mr Hanson has no evidence whatsoever. He has no evidence whatsoever to substantiate the claim that I had seen the minutes prior to the debate, that I had reviewed them or that I was privy to their contents. He has no evidence whatsoever. For him to make that claim is without any foundation. It is without any foundation, Madam Speaker.
This is an important matter. The conduct of this committee inquiry is an important matter and we know that it should have been able to be reported to this place in full. It would appear—it would appear—that in some way it is not reasonable for members in this place to comment on why it was that such an important committee inquiry could not report. It would seem that we are meant to treat this as a black box. But the facts are that we know there are problems in that committee. Everyone knows that. Everyone on that side of this chamber knows it. Everyone on this side of the chamber knows it. We know that there are problems in committee and we know the shenanigans that are going on from some members of the Liberal Party because they have demonstrated them before. It was reasonable for me to make those observations again today.
In terms of disclosure, if we are going to make arguments about disclosure of proceedings of a committee, then the Liberal Party is going to have to turn their attention to Mr Wall, who made exactly the same sorts of comments that I made during the debate on that committee non-report. He made exactly the same comments. Mr Gentleman made exactly the same comments. So if we are going—
Mr Hanson interjecting—
MADAM SPEAKER: Order, Mr Hanson!
MR CORBELL: to get into this sort of absurd trivia where the Assembly cannot debate why it is that a committee cannot report, then we really need to revisit why we are here. We really need to revisit why we are here. So those are the facts. This is trivia. This is an absurd argument backed up with no evidence from Mr Hanson—no evidence whatsoever—to back up his claim. It really does this Assembly little service to be agitating it in the manner that he has today.
My only error, Madam Speaker, was to assert that the minutes had been published when they were not. I have apologised to the Assembly for that error. It was an error and I explained the circumstances of the error. I acquitted my duty, which is to correct my statement and apologise. But to suggest that a minister should lose their office because of this absurd trivial argument really would set a new low for this place, and there are certainly no grounds for this motion to be supported today.
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