Page 2326 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 22 June 1994
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MR KAINE: I did. If I said "the DPP" I meant "the Attorney-General". Thank you for correcting me. The Attorney-General says that nobody has complained; that there has been no interference. That is blatantly untrue. The DPP has complained and he has alleged interference. All the Attorney-General has to do is to read the select committee report that was put to him only last week. The DPP has said that, in terms of determining what staff he needs, what those staffers ought to be, how they ought to be employed and what they ought to do, he has suffered interference in the performance of his duties. The Attorney-General might shrug that off and say that it does not matter; but it certainly does, because it impacts very significantly on the ability of the DPP to do his job. Mr Connolly is not even interested in the facts. If he is interested in them he just wants to shrug them off and say that they are irrelevant. They are not irrelevant.
I would like Mr Moore to listen carefully. Mr Moore said that the DPP told him that he was satisfied. There are degrees of satisfaction. The DPP did put forward that his preferred position was to be totally independent. His fall-back position, which he was extremely dissatisfied with and did not particularly like, was that if all else fails he will settle for the position put forward by the Government. To say that the DPP is satisfied is a purely relative thing. The DPP wanted to be independent. If you are talking about satisfaction, I would like to know just how satisfied the DPP is. When you talk about interference and about government putting pressure on people, one would have to ask just how much even latent coercive power was used to persuade the DPP to accept less.
Mr Connolly: Come on! That is grubby.
MR KAINE: Look at the puffing of the chest now and listen to the outrageous hysteria. It will come from the Minister in a minute. He will get to his feet and he will go over the top. The Attorney-General often talks about perceptions. We have a public officer, a statutory officer, who put his preferred position to a select committee of the Assembly. That preferred position has been set aside by the Government. Is the DPP going to come out publicly and say that they are wrong? Of course he is not. He is a statutory officer and he is subject to a direction by the Attorney-General. We are talking about whether the DPP is satisfied or not.
Mr Moore does not even want to listen. I asked him to listen carefully to what I am saying. He turns his back on me and he goes and consults with one of the Ministers. It is easy to see where his directions are coming from. He is not the slightest bit interested in any argument that might cause him to rethink his position and change his mind.
Mr Moore: I am very interested.
MR KAINE: I appreciate your attention, Mr Moore. I thank you for it. I hope that you do not mind if there is a little bit of cynicism in my voice. I believe that the Government's position is wrong. Mr Connolly says, "This is the model that you, Mr Kaine, put into place". Certainly it is, but I have since heard evidence from the DPP that it is not good enough. I am prepared to have an open mind and to have the DPP tell me that the model I put in place is not working and needs to be changed. The Government does not have the decency to have the same open mind. They have a closed mind, and Mr Moore is helping them keep it closed.
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