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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 06 Hansard (Thursday, 24 June 2004) . . Page.. 2727 ..

the case that the minister’s actions have been so grave that he deserves to lose his position.

Ms Tucker also said that she was going to support Ms Dundas’s amendment, or that she was interested in Ms Dundas’s amendment. If my recollection is correct she went on to say that we all make mistakes; that when we become aware of mistakes, some of us correct them; that sometimes we do not correct them; and that sometimes we correct them when they are brought to our attention.

Mrs Dunne made comment on the crux of Mrs Dunne’s argument. She was talking about Mr Corbell having said that Mr Smyth had said something that was in Hansard, instead of saying that it was from the Liberals’ package—Mr Corbell has tonight said that he did.

It is interesting. I am looking at the package of information that was provided to the media entitled Creating a safe, secure, and responsive mental health service, which the minister tabled earlier. Turning to page 4 of the document, under “key actions” it says that a Smyth Liberal government will x, y and z. It then says it will include a forensic unit as part of the ACT prison project. On page 5 about halfway down, in a quote from Mr Smyth, it says:

There are facilities. The key is the case load. We would establish a time-out facility and make sure there is a forensic unit as part of the hospital.

It is my opinion that both Mr Smyth and Mr Corbell have made human errors, as we all do. Mrs Dunne has based the crux of her argument on the fact that the minister said that this was in Hansard and Mr Smyth has come in here several times and said, “I cannot find where it is in Hansard”, and this is all suddenly terrible. The first thing I knew about this motion of no confidence was this morning, and that is the case for the majority of members on this side of the house.

I have asked Mr Corbell if he can recall Mr Smyth coming to his office, writing a letter to him, speaking to his office at all—if he knew—or asking about it in question time, to correct the record where Mr Corbell claimed that Mr Smyth had said that this was in Hansard. Mr Corbell, to the best of his knowledge, cannot recollect that. I do not know. Mr Smyth possibly made that approach but it would probably be the case that somebody from the minister’s office would have informed the minister that an approach had been made. If there was a letter we would have evidence of that letter; if there was an email we would have evidence of that email; and if there had been a conversation between the minister and Mr Smyth on this issue I hazard a guess that the minister would probably have some vague recollection of it, but he has no recollection of that.

Mr Cornwell said that it comes down to the dignity of the house and that Mr Corbell was making a mockery of the Assembly. I go back to what I said before. We all contribute to the dignity or otherwise of this place. I have to say that I do not believe this place was particularly dignified yesterday in the way a lot of items were handled. I felt almost physically ill at the behaviour in this place yesterday. I think that goes to many people, not just the people in the executive.

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