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

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 6 Hansard (17 June) . . Page.. 1895 ..

MR STEFANIAK

We have had the situation that not one but two ministers have refused to answer questions. I find that absolutely extraordinary.

There are quite clearly, as this report explains very capably, issues in relation to how questions are answered. Yes, there may be reasons for a minister not to answer some questions or answer them in a certain way. Mr Wood is looking askance in relation to this matter. The suggestion in relation to him was that he could have considered each question on its merit. He seems to have made some attempt to say why he could not answer questions, but I do not think his comments were terribly convincing.

Mr Wood was asked questions in relation to the McLeod inquiry. As pointed out in paragraph 2.48, he weakened his own position by acknowledging that historically Assembly estimates committees have ranged widely and then proceeded to prevent the committee from doing just that. He refused to answer questions. The committee was not satisfied, and rightly so. At paragraph 2.52, it said:

The Minister's grounds for declining to answer questions were twofold. Firstly, he believed that, despite established practice, these matters were not appropriate to an Estimates Committee. As outlined above, the Committee does not accept this.

I think that the committee was absolutely right and I think that, whatever happens in terms of other recommendations the committee has made, the minister should be ashamed of himself and stands condemned for prevaricating and refusing to answer questions.

The minister put forward as a second explanation the view that the concurrent McLeod inquiry and the coroners inquiry made it inappropriate to answer questions. There may have been a bit of force in that, except for the fact that the coronial inquest had not started and that there is a clearly established Senate practice in relation to that, as the committee has indicated. That left us with the McLeod inquiry. I think that the committee was quite correct in pointing out at paragraph 2.59:

It should be noted that, with regard to the specifics of Mr Wood's statement, the McLeod inquiry is not a court, royal commission or other judicial inquiry. It has no status that would prevent matters being considered by it from being considered elsewhere at the same time or allow a claim of sub judice with regard to matters before it.

No-one on the committee seems to have knocked that statement, which covers the point in relation to the minister's refusal there. If this minister did have some problems, he should have considered each question on its merit, but it is quite clear, given the date of the Estimates Committee meetings, he did not do so. I think that it is really quite extraordinary that that occurred.

But, as I said before, that was the case, not with only one minister, but with two. At least Mr Wood was concerned about the McLeod inquiry. The situation in relation to Mr Corbell covers a much shorter part of the Estimates Committee's report. Mr Corbell was asked to provide details of hospital waiting lists for March 2003, an eminently reasonable and most sensible question and something which every estimates committee would have asked of a minister. He acknowledged that officers did have the details, but he declined to answer the question. He stated, and I assume the quote is right:

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