Page 1154 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 6 April 2016

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(a) what police information was leaked, how and to whom;

(b) how did the ministerial staffers receive the sensitive police information;

(d) when was the information leaked and when did the Chief Minister become aware of the leak;

(e) was the second ALP staffer who was involved employed in Ms Burch’s office or another Minister’s office, and is that staffer still working for a Government member;

(f) why was a staffer reportedly asked to resign;

(g) are there any other ongoing investigations into other releases of information;

(h) what action is the Chief Minister now going to take now the issue has been officially referred to him by the AFP; and

(i) this explanation is to be presented to the Assembly before the end of sitting on 7 April 2016.

This motion today, at its essence, poses a simple but very important question: what has happened? What has happened here? I am not trying to downplay the seriousness of these incidents or the repercussions, but there are a lot of people in the community, people in the Assembly and sections in the media—indeed, Mr Rattenbury, I understand—who are saying, “What happened?” We have a right to know, Madam Assistant Speaker.

I will start by talking about what we do know and then conclude by asking the Chief Minister to outline what we do not know. There needs to be a full statement. I do not want half-truths, bits of the facts or bits that will be hidden because they might be embarrassing and so on. We have a situation where a police minister is called on to stand down and resign. A chief of staff lost her employment. I think we have a situation where something has gone very badly wrong at the heart of this government and people have a right to know, not least of all those people at the heart of this matter.

What we do know is that it involves problems at the heart of a government minister’s office. This is not just relating to Ms Burch. This is a government office. This is the Chief Minister’s government. It is one of his ministers that he appointed. It has cost the minister and her chief of staff their jobs and, to an extent, their reputations. In the case of the chief of staff, it has potentially cost her her entire career. This is not a light issue.

There have been lots of rumours; there has been lots of innuendo; there have been lots of suggestions. We have not played into that. We have not tried to second-guess what has happened here because we were told that we would be given answers. But unfortunately we have not been given answers.

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