Page 3178 - Week 10 - Thursday, 16 September 1993
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MR MOORE (11.26), in reply: If there are no other speakers on this motion, I would like to make a couple of points. It was interesting that Mr Lamont, in his comments, chose to attribute to me acknowledgments about things that were untrue and inappropriate, and contritions I have made. It is not for Mr Lamont to do my acts of contrition, Madam Speaker. I am quite capable of doing them myself if I so wish, and I will draw attention to when I did so in the First Assembly. Perhaps the emotion that is coming from Labor may indicate that on this issue they are a little more vulnerable than other groups in the Assembly; but then that might not be true as well. Mr Lamont continued by saying that the actions of one here reflect on the integrity of many, and, of course, that applies both ways. If there is an appropriate time when parliamentary privilege ought to be used and it is not used, or if it is never used, then I believe that that will also reflect on the parliament in a poor way.
Madam Speaker, I think that during Mr Humphries's speech there was an interjection, "Let us deal with this outside". I often hear that as a challenge, because it means, "Let us deal with this when we do not have parliamentary privilege". The reality is that as elected members of this parliament we do have parliamentary privilege. It is one of the privileges that Mr Stevenson has, even though he is a member of a parliament that he thinks ought not to exist. Some of us find some irony in the fact that Mr Stevenson would use this parliamentary privilege when he does not believe that it should exist.
I would like to take up another point that was raised by Mr Humphries. He said that he was very concerned about a motion - I will be careful not to reflect on the motion, Madam Speaker - that I see, in the minutes, was moved at our last sitting. The motion, after it was amended, was: "That this Assembly censures Mrs Carnell and Mr De Domenico for their attack under privilege of Mr Wright". Mr Humphries suggested that the difficulty with this was that it set a precedent. That, of course, is not true. The truth of the matter is that the precedent was originally set on 13 March 1991 when Mr Kaine, then Chief Minister, by leave, moved this motion:
That this Assembly:
(1) deplores the gross abuse of privilege by Mr Moore in raising an allegation yesterday against a Minister or Ministers without providing sufficient information to enable the Minister to respond to the allegations on that day; and
(2) censures Mr Moore for his actions in the matter.
That censure motion in the First Assembly was carried by 10 votes to one, the Labor Party leaving the chamber. The motion last week was carried on a vote of nine to six. Mr Stevenson was not here and I left the chamber. So there are some similarities between those motions, but the precedent was originally set in the First Assembly, in fact, by Mr Kaine.
Earlier there was an interjection from Mr Lamont - it may have been a comment across the chamber during somebody's speech - about contrition and so forth, and I said that I would refer to it later. Madam Speaker, I made it very clear publicly at that time - I think prior to the censure motion, but it may have been afterwards; it does not matter - that I had acted inappropriately. I did not withdraw what I had said, but I had acted inappropriately - - -
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