Page 1245 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 23 August 1989
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As I say, I understand fully why Mr Jensen feels aggrieved at the words that were used, but I am looking at the concept of this Assembly as a parliamentary body, and the question really is, I think, whether the substance of that problem warrants a censure of a Minister. I ask Mr Jensen to consider that very carefully, in terms of the institution and not just in terms of the personalities that are part of it.
However, to get to the second and third parts of Mr Jensen's motion, there is clearly the basis here for ministerial censure if we accept the fact that this is a Westminster-style parliament and that ministerial responsibility in that sense is part of our procedure. I think it raises the question of the degree to which a Minister can be held accountable and responsible. As I understand it, Mr Speaker, when Mr Whalan answered the question yesterday, and I have got a copy of the Hansard report, what he said was:
We have been informed by the Interim Territory Planning Authority that it is not aware of any approach whatsoever...
In fairness, I think we have to assume that, when the Minister said that, he was acting on advice that he had received from officers or administrators responsible to him for ensuring the accuracy of what he says in this house. If the Minister took that advice without question and presented it here, then it is a question not of whether he personally has done something reprehensible but of whether he lacks some judgment in not verifying the information first.
It is not a question of whether he deliberately set about to mislead the house, I think, but whether he lacked and failed to exercise judgment in determining that the advice that he had received was correct. So I submit that we have to be very careful here, because at some time in the near future some of the members on this side of the house may be sitting over there and we have to consider whether the same predicament is going to present itself to us.
I have a great deal of sympathy for the position that Mr Jensen has adopted. He feels that he is aggrieved personally. He feels that a person in the community whom he knows to be a man of integrity has been maligned. He feels that the Minister should have taken more trouble to verify the facts before he presented them in answer to a question. I can understand all of that, but I would ask Mr Jensen to consider the longer-term implications of this motion. I would also ask the Minister to whom it is directed to examine his actions and to determine whether, irrespective of whether this censure motion passes or not, there is some way that he can solve the personal problem between him and Mr Jensen and whether he might examine his conscience in the future to ensure that what he says is correct.
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