Page 1247 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 23 August 1989
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for a briefing by a particular community organisation. I realise that Mr Jensen made that statement because he had taken at face value the statement made to him.
I think, Mr Speaker, that it might have been more proper for Mr Jensen to have phrased his question somewhat differently and that, if he had done so, we would not be in this current difficulty. However, it is very clear to me that, on certain issues and amongst certain members, tempers obviously run high from time to time and statements are made that might have been better considered. Nevertheless, the question asked yesterday referred to political interference by Mr Whalan in a quite proper - we all accept it is quite proper - request for briefing by a community organisation.
I think that that kind of an allegation is the kind of an allegation that is designed to inflame passions, the kind of an allegation that demands a response of some sort, and I think that in phrasing it in that way Mr Jensen was well aware of that. I also think that the explanation which I have given today on the events surrounding the community organisation's request for briefing is a rather mundane explanation: there was no conspiracy; there was no Machiavellian intent; it was a bit of administrative mismanagement.
It was, as I say, rather a mundane little series of events that led to the Tuggeranong Community Council not getting the briefing that they sought at the time that they sought it. There is no doubt whatsoever that they would have got that briefing had I been aware that they wanted it. They would have got that briefing had those certain administrative errors not occurred. But the Tuggeranong Community Council, in writing to Mr Jensen - and he has given me a copy of that letter - are not totally accurate in their description of the events either. They have, for example, named an officer of the Government administration and said that that officer is an officer of the Interim Territory Planning Authority. He is not; nor is he an officer of Mr Whalan's department. He is in fact an officer of the Office of City Management.
So, as I say, there was a three-way communication breakdown, and I think that in a small way the Community Council itself might have contributed to that communication breakdown by talking to the wrong person and by not following it up vigorously enough. Nevertheless, it was a very mundane error that was made and I do not really think that it deserves the amount of heat and the amount of debate that it is receiving today.
Mr Speaker, the exact motion that we have before us I find somewhat mystifying, really. I agree with Mr Kaine that the first part of the motion we have before us is not really appropriate in a censure motion. But, in the second part of the motion that we have before us, it appears to me that the substance of the motion there is that my Minister
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