Page 3923 - Week 12 - Thursday, 20 October 2005
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There has obviously been a clear denial of natural justice to Mrs Dunne here. Again, we respect the right of the Leader of the Opposition to be as incisive and decisive as he or she might want to be. He can pick and choose and give jobs away for whatever reason he may have, including, of course, the preservation of his own position. I would hate to be in the position of Leader of the Opposition and have to resort to this sort of thing to keep the job, though. Perhaps we might hear from those opposite who are concerned about the application of natural justice in the case of Mrs Dunne. Perhaps from their silence we can take that to mean that they are quite happy to see the denial of natural justice to one of their colleagues. I invite them to say to this chamber what they think about it all.
This is not the first time, in fact, that we have seen this sort of precipitate action on the part of Mr Pratt. I can remember during the election campaign of 2004 an incident at an election booth in Wanniassa—Wanniassa High to be exact—where an aspirant for the Liberal Party had encroached two toenail lengths across the 100-metre line. He was moved on by the electoral office; he was dobbed in. Was he dobbed in by the Labor Party? No. Did you do it, Ms MacDonald? No. Mr Gentleman, did you do it? No. Did I do it? No. Did I even discuss it with anybody? No, not until afterwards. But I had a hoot when I discovered who it was who dobbed in the poor man. It was Mr Pratt; he stuck the knife into one of his own during the election campaign. Now he has run out of people to stab, so he thought; “Well, I will stab the nearest person to me. Who is that?” He looks around and sees Mrs Dunne and thinks; “Beauty—I will get her,” and he has. So I say to the Liberal Party’s hatchet man over there, “Well done, son. You’ve removed an element of opposition. You in fact removed one of the few people with any decency and any intelligence on your side of the house.”
Mr Pratt: You hypocritical bastard.
MR SPEAKER: What was that, Mr Pratt?
Mr Pratt: I withdraw the word after “hypocritical”.
Mr Hargreaves: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker: I think ‘hypocritical” is a disorderly phrase in this place.
MR SPEAKER: I do not think so. The other bit was unparliamentary, and Mr Pratt has withdrawn that, so we can move on.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella—Leader of the Opposition) (11.29): I thank those opposite for their interest in this matter. There has been a reassignment of roles in the opposition, and this motion reflects that reassignment.
Amendment agreed to.
Motion, as amended, agreed to.
Public Accounts—Standing Committee
Statement by chair
MR MULCAHY (Molonglo): Pursuant to standing order 246A, I wish to make
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