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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 04 Hansard (Thursday, 1 April 2004) . . Page.. 1494 ..

That was a recommendation of the committee, a recommendation unanimously agreed to—a recommendation agreed to by Ms MacDonald.

Let’s go to what Ms MacDonald said. She seems to be running with the hares when it suits her and hunting with the hounds on any other occasion. She said that the Canberra Times article confirmed her suspicion. I think that people need to read the Canberra Times article clearly. The Canberra Times article does talk about the possibility of a censure. It says that, if the government decides to pursue the censure motion, it will require the vote of one crossbench member, and refers to Mrs Cross.

We come then to the last two paragraphs. This is where the story changes. Ms MacDonald should perhaps read the article more closely or at least try to understand it. It goes on to say:

Mrs Dunne said she was not surprised at the move and said it was an attempt by Mr Hargreaves to take control of the Planning and Environment committee away from her.

That is the opening statement about the context in which Mrs Dunne’s comments are taken. The article goes on:

“The Assembly [privileges committee] recommended unanimously that no further action be taken, and the Labor Party will have to decide between doing the right thing and political advantage,” she said.

It goes on to say:

“It’s no skin off my nose and I know I haven’t done anything wrong.”

I have asked Mrs Dunne about those comments. At first blush you would think that it does not sound like she is contrite or that she is taking the report of the committee seriously. Mrs Dunne tells me that those comments were made in the context of her being the committee chair and that she thinks that she has done a good job as committee chair; they were not about what the privileges committee had found. As she quoted earlier, there have been something like 27 reports from the planning and environment committee, all of which were unanimous, which is something we all work towards and something that we do not get on a small number of occasions. I will leave that to Mrs Dunne to explain property. That is the context that she has given to me. I accept what she has said there and I think people need to understand it, but I am sure that Mrs Dunne, given the concerns raised here by members, will seek leave to explain that.

Mr Speaker, some of the comments by Mrs Cross were of concern and I ask you to look at whether there is precedence for a contempt here by Mrs Cross. Mrs Cross said words to the effect—we will all have to wait for the Hansard—“I’ll downgrade this from censure to grave concern if you resign from the chair.” I am not sure whether that is proper, whether it is an improper threat to a member, whether or not it is an attempt at blackmail and whether or not it might be covered by the crimes against the ACT government act. I would ask, Mr Speaker, that you look at what those words imply and whether or not the horse trading that is proposed and is so inappropriate actually reveals the plot.

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