Page 913 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 30 March 1993
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Mr Humphries: Deliberately.
MR MOORE: Deliberately mislead the Assembly. Madam Speaker, if I believed and if I felt that it could be shown that Mr Connolly had deliberately set out to mislead the Assembly, or even had inadvertently misled the Assembly and then was not prepared to correct it - by not correcting he then is effectively deliberately misleading the Assembly - I would support such a motion.
In Mr Humphries's concluding comments he said that perhaps "misled" is too strong a word. Madam Speaker, if "misled" is too strong a word, then it is an inappropriate motion. We have used terms before that are softer than "censure". Perhaps instead of being a censure motion it may have been a motion to reflect a slap on the knuckles for the Minister. Perhaps there is some room to slap Mr Connolly on the knuckles for the way he is using the statistics to put a brave face on an awkward situation. He is entitled to do that, Madam Speaker. It is a politically standard procedure that we try to put the best light on something, but I must say that in this Assembly it has not tended to be the practice. In this Assembly people have tried to present things broadly and openly, as they are, and I think that that is something that we should try to continue to do.
That was the weakness, perhaps, I would argue, of Mr Connolly's approach to that question at question time. But, Madam Speaker, at best it is a weakness of approach. I think that none of us would deny that Mr Connolly is entitled, should he so wish, to put the best possible face on a situation. He was asked a question about one thing and he answered about something entirely different, and I think that if we were to look carefully at the standing orders we would find that that was inappropriate. But once again, Madam Speaker, his attention was drawn to that during question time by Mr Humphries and to a certain extent, as I recall from reading the Hansard, the Minister did come back on track to try to make the point that a defensive mechanism or a crime prevention system, such as is used on cars, should be applied to houses. That is a sensible way to argue, by comparison. So he could argue that this was the reason for presenting the issue in this particular way.
Madam Speaker, the first and most important thing is that for a censure motion to be carried the matter has to be particularly serious. To mislead the house is particularly serious and is grounds for a censure motion. It certainly has not been shown today that the Minister has misled the house. He gilded the lily perhaps. He presented things in the nicest possible light, yes. They are fair criticisms and they are political criticisms. They are the sorts of interjections and the sorts of criticisms that one can make in dealing with this issue in later times.
Mr Berry: We would all be dangling somewhere, Michael, if it were a hanging offence.
MR MOORE: Precisely. Of course, Madam Speaker, I would never have gilded the lily on anything. I would never try to put the best possible light on anything. Heaven forbid, Madam Speaker. It seems to me that the other question we face is the question about lies and statistics, and how you use statistics. There is no-one living in Canberra who does not recognise the way statistics are used, misused and abused within the whole spectrum. Madam Speaker, there have been suggestions today that the spectrum has been twisted a little and shoved a little both ways. I think the suggestions about how those statistics have been used are accurate in some ways, but they are not grounds for a censure motion.
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