Page 1402 - Week 04 - Thursday, 12 April 2018
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coincidence. It is an arguable case that this paragraph could have misled people into thinking that they were putting in a submission to an Assembly website which would actually directly go to the Assembly. I think that is a very important issue, and that is where possibly the major issues of privilege go.
Following on from this—that people may well have thought they were submitting to the Assembly’s website, given that is basically what they were told they were doing—we run into the question of: how has this interfered with the operation of the inquiry? If people lodged submissions at this have your say website, they may or may not have gone to the PAC inquiry; we have no way of knowing that. The PAC inquiry has no way of knowing this.
I am not suggesting what may or may not have happened. All I am suggesting is that the PAC inquiry and the Assembly have no way whatsoever of knowing what happened, so there is at least a real possibility that the inquiry is not getting the information that people in Canberra, or people anywhere, thought was going to it. So there is the real possibility that the inquiry could be, as Ms Cody suggested yesterday, possibly corrupted because of this.
In conjunction with lengthy discussions with colleagues on all sides of the chamber, I have made a revised motion which deals with these issues. It also deals with related issues. In particular, I point to point (3) in this motion, which says that the committee should also examine whether the third-party websites raised in (1)(g) have raised any issues. I list a couple that I am aware of; there may well be others. UnionsACT did something for the insecure work inquiry and the Australian Christian Lobby has done one for the end of life committee.
The point I am making here is that this is not an issue relating simply to this particular website. This is relating to the fact that the Legislative Assembly’s committees have not always moved with the times in terms of providing easy ways for people in the community to relate to us. This is something I have mentioned in a number of forums in the past, in particular, at the committee chairs meetings. It is something that, regardless of this particular unfortunate incident, needs addressing. I am not sure that a privileges committee is the best way of doing it but, nonetheless, I put this on the table because it is a related issue that does need dealing with.
The other thing that my motion has that is different from Ms Cody’s original motion is to make it quite clear that the public accounts committee can continue its business relating to the rates inquiry by meeting and holding public hearings on this matter. Ms Cody’s motion did not say anything about that.
As I said, I do not think this issue is about rates. Whether we think they are too high, too low or whatever, it is not about rates. This is about how Assembly committees communicate to the community and get feedback from the community. It is ensuring that that is done in accordance with standing orders and making sure that all the information that the public want to give committees actually gets to the committees. We have made that abundantly clear in this motion.
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