Page 1304 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 16 April 1991
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SEMINAR PAMPHLET
Motion of Censure
MS FOLLETT (Leader of the Opposition), by leave: Mr Speaker, I move:
That Mr Stevenson be censured for bringing the Assembly into disrepute.
I refer to the document that was tabled during question time today, which is an invitation to a positive result seminar to hear Mr Dennis Stevenson MLA. These invitations were issued in Legislative Assembly envelopes and it is the substance of my motion that they contain both false and misleading information.
Mr Stevenson, in this invitation, is described, firstly, as the man "who held the balance of power in the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly for seven months". Mr Speaker, that is simply not the case. I presume Mr Stevenson there refers to the seven months when the Labor Party was in government. It is a well-known fact that we were a minority government. There was no question of a balance of power. We clearly did not have the numbers. It is now a matter of history and of fact that the government changed when you, Mr Prowse, and Mr Duby and Ms Maher chose to join with the Liberals and the Residents Rally. That is what changed the government. No action of Mr Stevenson changed or could have changed the government, and it is therefore quite untrue to say that he held the balance of power.
The second point expressed in Mr Stevenson's invitation, and I will quote it, is, "the man who knocked back a proposed ministerial package of $84,000 a year salary plus a car". Mr Speaker, I have never, and we have heard also that Mr Kaine has never, offered Mr Stevenson a ministry. If Mr Stevenson has been offered a ministerial package of $84,000 a year salary plus car, then I think it is up to him to say who made that offer. It is quite untrue to say, as this invitation clearly asserts, that that offer was made either by my Government or, as we have heard, by Mr Kaine. I think it is up to Mr Stevenson, if there is any truth in that statement, to tell us what it is.
Mr Duby: There is no ministerial package of $84,000 anyway.
MS FOLLETT: Mr Speaker, Mr Duby points out that there is no ministerial package of $84,000. It is worth saying that whilst I was in government the ministerial package was precisely $40,000, exactly the same as for any other member. So Mr Stevenson, I think, has made a quite misleading statement there.
Finally, Mr Stevenson claims to be the man "whom four Ministers of the Crown have accused of being too persistent". I am prepared to give him the benefit of the
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