Page 1947 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 16 June 1993
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MR LAMONT (4.51): Madam Speaker, I am somewhat bemused by the methodology of the attack this afternoon, by virtue of both the misinformation and the outright slanderous attack on unnamed servants of this administration by Mr Stevenson and Mr De Domenico. If we are going to talk about the selective use of statistics, Mr Stevenson should bear in mind that 89 per cent of the population of the Australian Capital Territory disapprove of him and do not want him to sit in this chamber. Mr Stevenson seems to ignore that simple position. We have 89 per cent of the population, if we want to use that sort of analogy, that say that he is not doing his job appropriately or well enough.
If we were to conduct a Stevo poll or a survey on Mr Stevenson and his managerial style, his presentation and his acceptability to the Canberra community, we would find that the level of acceptance and endorsement of his actions and activities by the ACT community would be even more miserable now than it was some 18 months ago. Mr Stevenson has a right to stand up here this afternoon and say, "Look what Lamont has done. He has turned around and attacked me personally about this particular issue". Mr Stevenson, when I do that to you in this Assembly, you have the right of reply.
Mr Stevenson: Not now, I don't.
MR LAMONT: You have the right of reply in a range of forms in this Assembly. But every manager and every staff member of the Chief Minister's Department does not have that right.
Mr Stevenson: Staff do not need a right of reply.
MR LAMONT: Staff do not need the right of reply?
Mr Stevenson: I was talking about management.
MR LAMONT: But management are staff. There is a simple, new, modern technique. It may be something that was not in vogue when you were waxing legs and in the Army and in the New South Wales police force and those other jobs that you had, or that you say that you have had. Maybe, Mr Stevenson, in those days and at those times these new management techniques were not in vogue. There is something called industrial democracy where managers try to include their staff in the breadth of the operation for which they have responsibility.
When you are talking about staff and management, you are talking about all of the staff and all of the management in the Chief Minister's Department. This afternoon you have stood up here and you have slagged every single one of them, without their having the right of reply, without any of them having the right of reply. Mr De Domenico, you may not like that, but you have done the same thing. I regard it as absolutely outrageous, but consistent with your actions. It was not so long ago that you stood up in this Assembly and attacked the collector of revenue in the ACT.
Mr De Domenico: I attacked the collector of revenue?
MR LAMONT: Yes, you did. We find that, to score a cheap political point, you have taken an attitude of slagging people who do not have the right to defend themselves. You have misrepresented - - -
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