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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 6 Hansard (25 May) . . Page.. 1923 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

possible breach of privilege, there is only one forum where that should take place and that should be a select committee on privileges.

The Standing Committee on Planning and Urban Services is not the appropriate forum. The Standing Committee on Planning and Urban Services does not have as its terms of reference the examination of possible breaches of privilege, Mr Speaker. The Standing Committee on Planning and Urban Services does not have the expertise to consider a possible breach of privilege.

Mr Speaker, what the government would like the Assembly to believe this evening is that this is simply a matter of a clarification; that this is just about clarification. Mr Speaker, it is not just about clarification. I have been in this place now for just over three years. I have never seen a witness state so explicitly, indeed, in any way, that he was pressured by a minister to change his view, and that his organisation was pressured by a minister to change their view. I have never seen it before, Mr Speaker.

Mr Moore: You should have been here for the AID's Action Council and seen how it really worked.

MR SPEAKER: Order! Mr Corbell has the call, thank you.

MR CORBELL: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I would hope that we will never see it again. The fact is that we have seen it on the record in the Hansard of the Standing Committee on Planning and Urban Services. We have seen it and we cannot ignore what was said. We cannot pretend that just because Mr Gower issued another statement which contradicted everything that he said in the Hansard that this is no longer a possible breach of privilege. We cannot draw that assumption.

What Mr Gower said on the public record, in Hansard, was required to be truthful, as is required of every other witness. We expect evidence given to Assembly committees to be truthful, and we have to determine, Mr Speaker, that what he said to the standing committee was truthful because that is what he was required to be. No-one is suggesting that Mr Gower said something misleading. No-one from the other side has said that. So, if it was truthful, if it was not misleading, then it was a clear allegation of pressure by a minister on a witness in relation to the evidence to be given to an Assembly inquiry. It constitutes a possible breach of privilege. The government claims it is not, but it is for this Assembly to decide whether or not it was a possible breach of privilege. (Extension of time granted.) I thank members. Mr Speaker, it is a possible breach of privilege, not a definite breach, not a certain one; but it is a possible breach of privilege.

Mr Speaker, if we were asking simply for a clarification of what Mr Gower said then maybe the government has a case, but that is not what we are asking for and it is not what this Assembly should be asking for, because what he has alleged falls into the category of an attempt to improperly influence a witness. It was an attempt to improperly influence a witness.

I am sure Mr Gower is not familiar with the standing orders of this place, nor with House of Representatives Practice, but what he stated of what occurred was an attempt to improperly influence a witness. For that reason it must be investigated as a possible

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