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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 10 Hansard (13 October) . . Page.. 3069 ..

MS CARNELL (continuing):

"the revelation", Mr Speaker -

Not might have been, but was voluntarily deregistered. He then goes on to say:

Mr Speaker, no questions but the revelation. Is this excusable? No, it is not excusable. We on this side of the house accept that people do occasionally make mistakes in this place. What do we do when we make those mistakes? We follow standing orders and come straight into this place and correct what we said.

Mr Speaker, if I or Mr Humphries or Mr Moore or Mr Smyth or Mr Stefaniak said something yesterday in question time that was not right, what would we be doing right now? Would we be having question time? No. We would be debating a censure motion or a no-confidence motion if a Minister had said something that they knew to be incorrect and had not immediately, at the first opportunity, corrected it on the floor of this house. I asked Mr Corbell yesterday afternoon to apologise in the house. I put out a press release asking him again to do so. He has not even put out a press release to undo the damage he has done by misleading the ACT public.

Yesterday we had a censure motion of Mr Smyth, because he misled the ACT public, supposedly. That did not get up, but this press release obviously and categorically, in black and white, misleads the ACT public. The comments Mr Corbell made in this place yesterday categorically misled this Assembly, and he has not - - -

Mr Corbell: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Chief Minister can only imply I have misled the Assembly by way of substantive motion.

MS CARNELL: I am happy to withdraw, Mr Speaker.

MR SPEAKER: Thank you.

MS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, this was not in good faith; it was amateurish. But, most importantly, this degrades the whole reputation of this place. The rules that exist for government must exist for all members of the Assembly - and they do. We have standing orders to require members to correct statements that they make, if they were incorrect, at the first possible opportunity. What happens if they do not? They are censured or a no-confidence motion is moved.

I think it is about time that Mr Corbell got up - and he can do it under 46 or 47 or whatever he likes; we will even give him leave - to apologise for putting information on the record yesterday in this Assembly that was incorrect and for putting information out into the Canberra community that could easily have misled the public. I will finish my

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