Page 1506 - Week 05 - Thursday, 13 May 2021
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What we are doing here is undermining his independence. He has a referral before him. Now what we are doing is having a debate in this place on this matter on the notice paper, and we are going to be doing this trawl for information so that somehow, instead of the Commissioner for Standards doing his job, Ms Burch and her Labor mates, and I assume the Greens—they are always in cahoots—think that they are going to have a bit of a kangaroo court here.
It is not good enough that the Commissioner for Standards does his job. No, we are going to have a bit of a kangaroo court to run in parallel. It is just in case he comes back with an answer that they do not like obviously, from the Labor Party point of view and the Greens point of view. What they want to do in this place is have a parallel process where this kangaroo court of the Greens and the Labor Party can run their little smear campaign against him.
Certainly, this prejudicing of an independent referral is potentially a denial of due process and that is why Mr Milligan will not be talking to this. He has made the referral. He is the subject of the referral. And he is not going to do what we find that the Labor Party is doing in this place and try to push forward a process that potentially prejudices the independent actions of the independent commissioner.
The third point I have is that I think that the trawl for information that we see in the motion is pretty dangerous and an outrageous abuse of the powers of the Assembly in terms of privacy. They are asking about his actions when he was not a member of this place. They are asking for things that are potentially business-in-confidence and are asking for private legal advice—items of legal advice on matters and advice from the Integrity Commissioner.
If asking for potential legal advice, if that is the precedent of this place, I look forward to that. If tabling legal advice is now going to be something the Speaker calls for and is ruling on obviously by this, as it is in her motion—that this is something we can ask for and expect—be careful, members, because it is a longstanding form of this place that legal advice has privilege.
It is an extraordinary thing that the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly would be asking for a member’s legal advice. If that is not enraging you, as members of this place, then it should.
Fourthly, there is the substance of the issues raised. I do not want to go too far into these matters because they have been referred to the Commissioner for Standards, but the title of this motion is “Protected Information”. The protected information in the Electoral Act is the electoral roll. The electoral roll is not emailed. How is it possible that somehow this conflicted motion, this smear campaign, is going to conflate what is protected information, which is the electoral roll and the Electoral Act, with emails that are not on the electoral role?
But that is the title of this motion, to try to give the impression that somehow some great crime has been committed against the Electoral Act. It is not possible. And the rest of the motion makes that abundantly clear.
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