Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 6 Hansard (25 May) . . Page.. 1836 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

There are therefore two explanations as to what happened on the day in which that evidence was given by Mr Gower. One is that Mr Gower came to the committee and he had been strongarmed by somebody and he gave the evidence and meant what he said. The other is that Mr Gower came to that committee to give that evidence, misunderstanding comments that had been made to him personally by the minister or somebody else about the new road to link Gungahlin with the rest of Canberra.

Mr Gower himself maintains, and the Gungahlin Community Council itself now maintains, that that latter interpretation is the correct interpretation, I gather. We need to find out, quite legitimately, what the explanation is. What we do need to find out is what has actually occurred, and I believe, for a number of reasons, that the best way of doing that is by referring the matter back to the committee where this issue first arose.

First of all, it is the committee where this originally occurred. This committee has the evidence before it. The committee will be able to ascertain the extent to which these issues are the same issues that were put in the same way to the committee on the first occasion. Secondly, as Mr Moore has said, elevating this issue to a point where we say to the community, "We want to find out about this matter by getting certain witnesses to come back before the committee," courts the possibility of the witnesses not coming to the committee. Mr Corbell scowls at that suggestion.

Mr Corbell: That's a really good reason not to hold an inquiry, isn't it? It's a silly reason.

MR HUMPHRIES: No, it is a good reason not to hold a select committee inquiry. It is a better reason to hold an inquiry by the very same committee which has already examined those issues.

There is a third issue, Mr Speaker, a very important issue, which I want to put before the Assembly, to deal with the trigger for this motion. Members have heard already quoted House of Representatives Practice, which suggests that where a witness before a committee is influenced, intimidated, bullied, bribed or threatened in some way, a potential contempt of parliament occurs as a result of that happening. Where a witness before a committee is threatened or cajoled in that way, a potential contempt of parliament occurs.

I ask members to look at the transcript of what happened in the urban services committee, the so-called conversations which are purported to constitute the threat, cajoling or intimidation of this witness, and point to the part where it indicates that the person's evidence before a committee of the Assembly was what the person making these threats, supposedly Mr Smyth, was trying to influence.

Let us suppose, for argument's sake, that Mr Smyth did say what Mr Gower said on 5 May he had said to him. Supposing these brandishments were made to Mr Gower, for argument's sake. Mr Smyth denies that they were said and I believe him. Even if they were said, what evidence is there that this was designed to produce a change in evidence before the Standing Committee on Planning and Urban Services? There is none. There is not one single reference in the transcript that I have read to the standing committee or any other committee of the Assembly.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .