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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 8 Hansard (26 August) . . Page.. 2427 ..

MRS CARNELL (Chief Minister) (4.54): Mr Speaker, I seek leave to move the motion of censure circulated in my name.

Leave granted.

MRS CARNELL: I move:

That this Assembly censures Mr Berry and Ms McRae for misleading the Assembly in relation to false statements they made on 26 June 1997 about a private company.

Mr Speaker, we will attempt to keep this debate to a minimum, at least from this side of the house, because I think the case is very much cut and dried. Members will be aware that on 15 August the Government flagged its intention to move a censure motion against Mr Berry and Ms McRae. At that stage, I wrote to members of the crossbenches and provided them with the background information about this issue.

I will be brief because, as I said, I think this is a relatively straightforward motion. It charges Mr Berry and Ms McRae with misleading the Assembly over statements they both made on 26 June in this house. During question time on that day, these two MLAs, along with other Opposition members, made a series of detailed accusations about a company that had been engaged by the Government - Fay Richwhite and Associates. Mr Berry, during his question, told the Assembly:

What does this say about the probity check you undertake of contractors, if a firm which has been involved in tax rorts to the extent that Fay Richwhite and Associates have - rorts that have defrauded governments of hundreds of millions of dollars - is employed by the ACT Government?

Mr Speaker, I want to emphasise two key phrases used by Mr Berry here - "a firm which has been involved in tax rorts" and "rorts that have defrauded governments of hundreds of millions of dollars". These statements were not presented by Mr Berry as mere allegations, but instead were represented by him as factual occurrences. The use of the word "defrauded" by Mr Berry was clearly intended to signal to members of this Assembly and the community that a criminal offence had actually been committed by this firm. Put simply, the intention of Mr Berry's statement on 26 June was to advise the Assembly that Fay Richwhite and Associates had been convicted of tax rorts by a court or other similar authority. There can be no other interpretation, Mr Speaker. In fact, I will be interested to know what other interpretation those opposite might put on those comments.

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