Page 1702 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 29 May 1990
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this is not a serious matter. He was trying to distinguish this offence from the offence that Mrs Nolan found herself facing and, as Mr Berry said, Mrs Nolan, in our view, did precisely the right thing. She stood down immediately upon conviction. I do not know whether she is going to proceed with an appeal. If she does and she is successful, of course she is entitled to return to a more responsible position than a backbencher.
The courts regarded Mr Duby's offences as serious enough to warrant a $900 penalty on one offence and cancellation of licence. Mrs Nolan suffered a $1,100 penalty on three offences. There was very little difference, as I would put it, in the seriousness of the offences. Mr Kaine then said that it is not regarded in the community as a serious offence. Well, that is an appalling statement from the Chief Minister. Again, how will the magistrates, the police, the responsible road traffic authorities who are constantly trying to remind us that we should not drink and drive, react to the Chief Minister's view that it is all right, in effect, to be done for drink-driving or done for refusing a breath test?
In the case of refusal to undergo a breath test - not exceed 0.08 in this case - in effect, refusing a direction from a lawful authority, a policeman, how would Mr Kaine in his previous profession, that most honourable profession of a commissioned officer in the Australian Military Forces, have treated a subordinate officer who refused a lawful duty? To an officer's code of ethics, that must be as serious a matter as can be contemplated. But Mr Kaine believes that it is not regarded by the community as serious for a person to refuse a police direction to take a breath test. That is appalling.
The third and rather more desperate defence was that this was merely a political stunt by the Opposition; that we had done nothing earlier on. When Mr Duby first came before the courts and was charged on 9 April, reported on 10 April, Ms Follett in statements to the media called for his resignation. But at that time it was well-known in the Canberra community and had been reported on the front page of the Canberra Times that Mrs Nolan was facing a hearing before the magistrates.
For the Opposition to have launched a full-blooded attack on standards of ministerial responsibility and to have made the point, as we have consistently made today, that a Minister who is convicted of an offence must resign, would have put us in a very difficult position with an Executive Deputy before the courts. We would have been in some danger of being thought to be prejudicing that matter, and in my view the proper, cautious approach was taken. A more politically opportunist approach would have been to go in hell for leather and ignore any adverse effect on the other trial of a member of this Government. It is unusual for an opposition to have to make that choice because it is unusual for a government to have two members facing the
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