Page 2685 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 25 August 1993
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Mr Humphries: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. Notwithstanding the ferment that is coming from the other side, I do not think a term like "grub" is parliamentary, and I ask Mr Connolly to withdraw it.
MADAM SPEAKER: I would not find that unparliamentary, Mr Humphries. Please continue, Mrs Carnell.
MRS CARNELL: Again, what I am saying is that what I said in my question and what was followed up by Mr De Domenico was that Mr Charles Wright was named in the royal commission, which he was. He was certainly - - -
Mr Wood: "Mentioned" would be a better word.
Ms Ellis: "Mentioned" is a much better word than "named".
MRS CARNELL: Okay. In my question I said "identified". He was identified in it. I asked whether, in light of Mr Wright's unfavourable mention - if you think this is a favourable mention, heaven help us. It is certainly an unfavourable mention. He certainly was identified. He certainly was an agent who distributed money, as the royal commission found, for illicit purposes. Therefore, everything that was in the question was totally appropriate. As for the much more important point, is it not - certainly this side of the house believes that it is - the job of the Opposition to make sure that the Government is kept accountable and that appointments that are made are appropriate? That is exactly what this question was about.
MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (3.49): Madam Speaker, I will speak very briefly on this matter, but I think that Mrs Carnell's disingenuousness really does need to be exposed.
Mrs Carnell: I did not move the motion.
MS FOLLETT: And giggling from Mrs Carnell is really not helping her cause at this point. Madam Speaker, as I said, I believe that Mrs Carnell has displayed disingenuousness, and I think she has displayed it to the point of the utmost hypocrisy this afternoon. Mrs Carnell knows, or she would never have asked the question in question time, that she has made a clear imputation of improper, if not illegal, behaviour by Mr Charles Wright, and she has been caught out.
Madam Speaker, Mrs Carnell attempted to bamboozle the debate by resorting to a dictionary definition of "bagman". In that definition, Madam Speaker, there is quite clearly a reference to illicit purposes. Illicit is simply illegal.
Mr Connolly: "Illicit" means unlawful.
MS FOLLETT: Unlawful purposes. There is nothing which any member of the Opposition has put forward today, there is nothing in this royal commission report, that finds Mr Charles Wright guilty of illegal, unlawful or illicit practices.
Mrs Carnell: I never said that he was.
MS FOLLETT: Madam Speaker, Mrs Carnell now says, "I never said that he was". I say to her that that is disingenuousness. Why then did she ask the question in question time? Why did Mr De Domenico ask it? I think that they are back-pedalling at a hundred miles an hour now, trying to say that they never meant that Mr Charles Wright was a crook; that that is not what they meant.
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