Page 3255 - Week 10 - Thursday, 25 August 2005
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Well, fancy that! Mr Selby refers to the opposition—that is the Liberal Party in the ACT—and goes on:
It has blown a sensible comment about avoiding trouble made by the chief justice, it has taken that and quite inappropriately tried to attach it to the person of the attorney and the Chief Minister and, frankly, that is bloody nonsense.
That is what a leading Australian expert says about the Liberal Party—that its attitude and behaviour in relation to this matter has been inappropriate and that the conclusions it has drawn and peddled are, “frankly, bloody nonsense”. I think it is worth noting that it is not just the opposition that was the only party to misunderstand the chief justice. I hope the Canberra Times is reflecting on its front page story of last Saturday where it claimed, “Judiciary freedom put at risk; judge blasts govt.” That was a Canberra Times interpretation of Justice Higgins’s speech that I think Dr Hugh Selby would also categorise as “bloody nonsense”.
MR SPEAKER: Supplementary question, Ms MacDonald.
MS MacDONALD: Can the Chief Minister explain to the Assembly how the comments of Mr Selby on this important issue contrast with the position of the opposition?
MR STANHOPE: I certainly can. There is a stark contrast, a stark divide, between the opposition’s position of convenience and that of expert commentators such as Mr Selby. Mr Stefaniak rails against Mr Selby, and is doing it now. We do recall Mr Stefaniak’s assertion yesterday that of all these members of the profession—
Mrs Dunne: Is there a connection between the two—
MR SPEAKER: Order! Chief Minister, you should not reflect on yesterday’s vote.
MR STANHOPE: Thank you, Mr Speaker. In the past I have heard, inside and outside this place, Mr Stefaniak refer to the legions of legal practitioners who support his view on the separation of powers. I invite him, before the close of business today, to table their opinion—if not their opinion, their names so that I might discuss with them their opinion on the separation of powers.
But of course I think we do need to reflect that just as Mr Selby has a long publicly recorded history of comment on the issue so, as we know, painfully, does the opposition spokesperson, Mr Stefaniak. And we need to acknowledge that Mr Stefaniak has been consistent—wrong, but consistent, or at least consistently wrong. On 8 December last year, Mr Stefaniak was asserting in a media release that in joining the appeal “the government had threatened the separation of powers.” On the same day, he ran the same line in the Assembly. He said:
We say … he—
Meaning me—
has exceeded his role by intervening here. It goes contrary to the role of the Attorney-General as it is generally understood in the Westminster system …What
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