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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 09 Hansard (Thursday, 19 August 2004) . . Page.. 3971 ..

I want to address two issues. There is not one word in this dissenting report which is, as far as I can tell, out of place or untoward. I thought very carefully about how all of it would be structured and I sought advice at every turn. When I finished my draft of the report—

MR SPEAKER: Mrs Dunne, you sought leave to comment again on the amendment and you should confine your remarks to the amendment.

MRS DUNNE: I am. I am commenting on the remarks that Mr Hargreaves made to my amendment. In making those comments, he raised the prospect that I was in breach of the standing orders. I would like to address that issue. I would like to address the issue by saying that I was painfully aware of the standing orders and, when I had finished my report, I went to the Clerk and said, “I know that this is very difficult and this is fairly robust. I would like you to advise me on things that you think are inappropriate for the report.” I took the Clerk’s advice on things in the report that he thought were inappropriate. In fact, the things that I was most concerned about and some of the things that Mr Hargreaves read out were words that, on the advice of the Clerk, I decided to keep in.

The other issue Mr Hargreaves raised was that I was divulging elements of what transpired in Mr Burke’s letter. In doing so, Mr Hargreaves read out items which were, in fact, direct lifts from Hansard of the question time of the day. I cannot accept that that could be considered as divulging what was said by Mr Burke. The other implication of what Mr Hargreaves said was that I had consulted with Mr Burke. I have not.

In fact, I had to apologise to Mrs Burke last night, after I had finished writing this report, because of what must have appeared to have been enormous rudeness on my part in that, as is our wont on sitting nights, members, staff and some of the spouses went out to dinner on Tuesday night and Mr Burke sat across the table from me and I said, “Hello, Lindsay, how are you?” but I did not utter another word to him. He probably thought that I was a pretty rude cow but, knowing what I knew, I knew the priorities of the situation and I have not had a conversation with Mr Burke since this matter arose on it or any other thing. I need to put that on the record.

Question put:

That Mrs Dunne’s amendment be agreed to.

The Assembly voted—

Question so resolved in the negative.

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