Page 1396 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 13 May 2014
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If we actually reflect on the alleged offence, there was quite some back and forth in the chamber last week, but as I commented last week—and I think this came down to the essence of it, and the Chief Minister has repeated it today—the Chief Minister said when talking about discussion in caucus:
As part of that discussion, we discussed the fact that the chair’s report—not the content of the report, not what individual members had said, not anything like that—got to a certain point and then the resolution was that you could not table the report.
She went on to say:
I do not know how else we could get that done. If that is wrong, getting that report, then by all means look at the standing orders and try to resolve something in this Assembly, because there was no report and we wanted the report. Then the party room took a decision to have a motion to call on the report to be tabled.
When I have reflected on the transcript of this whole discussion of last week, that is the essence of the discussion. The Chief Minister was very clear. Mr Coe has said today that we cannot endorse leaking of information. I do not think there was any leaking of information. I think the Chief Minister in her remarks made it perfectly clear how Mr Corbell had come to be able to make the remarks he made.
We have certainly had denials from all the committee members, as reported to this place this morning. They have made it very clear that there was no inappropriate disclosure of information. But, as I said, we have had an acknowledgement that there was a conversation in ALP caucus where the character of what took place in the committee was discussed. I do not think there is any great secret here; it has been laid out perfectly clearly how the information came about. This was apparently done in a way to decide tactics for the chamber that morning. That is something—and I made these comments last week in this place—that all party rooms no doubt do. Members discuss tactics of, “Well, this committee report’s coming up today. Is someone going to speak to it? Here’s what’s going on.”
These sorts of things take place, and that is why I have put on the notice paper for Assembly business this Thursday to have this matter referred to the administration and procedures committee for further assessment. That goes to the point of standing order 278 where it talks about the existence of any remedy other than that power for any act which may be held to be a contempt. What we need to do here is look at the alternative remedy. I do not believe the standing orders match the practice of this place.
To that end, in the referral to committee I have specifically referenced the standing orders of the New Zealand parliament, and I have circulated the key ones to my colleagues on the administration and procedure committee as background information to provide to their party room colleagues ahead of the discussion on Thursday when considering whether to support my referral to committee. The New Zealand standing orders clearly reflect the fact that there is a difference between having a tactical discussion in a party room around how to deal with a matter on the business paper of
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