Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .
Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 13 Hansard (19 November) . . Page.. 3702 ..
MR HUMPHRIES: It is a fairly serious matter, Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER: I understand that, but I feel constrained by the standing orders. I think you will have to move to suspend standing orders.
Suspension of standing and temporary orders
MR HUMPHRIES: I move:
That so much of the standing and temporary orders be suspended as would prevent me concluding my speech.
Question resolved in the affirmative, with the concurrence of an absolute majority.
MR HUMPHRIES: I will be brief. I thank the house. Mrs Cross alleged to the committee that she had come to the view that something was untoward in the Liberal Party, and her reaction to that was to send a staff member to discuss it with me. The staff member never came to discuss the matter with me. I do not know what happened in the committee when that staff member gave evidence. I am quite certain that that person would have told the committee that he never came and discussed it with me.
Mr Speaker, that is an illustration of how much weight we should give in this place to the allegations which have been made before the committee and made since the committee reported about the knowledge of myself in particular and my colleagues in this matter.
The most important factor about that is that, despite Mrs Cross giving that evidence, the committee, in the very last paragraph of its report, said:
The committee found no evidence to suggest that any member of the Assembly had any knowledge of Mr Strokowsky's access to Mr Wood's e-mails. Nor did it find evidence that any other member of the Opposition's staff in the Assembly had sufficient knowledge of the access or use being made of the emails to suggest that any other staff member could also be in contempt of the Assembly.
With respect, literally that cannot be true, because there was evidence put before the committee. I heard it on the intercom system. I heard that evidence being given by Mrs Cross. What the committee obviously found was that there was no credible evidence, no acceptable evidence, that that was the case. That is a matter which I think this Assembly should take very seriously.
MR QUINLAN (Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development, Business and Tourism, Minister for Sport, Racing and Gaming and Minister for Police, Emergency Services and Corrections) (11.23): I wish to refer to a couple of things that Mr Humphries said. First of all, I would like to place on record my congratulations of the committee for doing exactly what Mr Humphries has said, in drawing no conclusions unless they had absolute evidence. That is an overriding characteristic of this report. Unless something was absolutely reported, the committee said it did not have evidence to support a particular conclusion. I think the committee has done very well.
Mr Stanhope: It does not mean it is not true.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .