Page 370 - Week 02 - Thursday, 8 March 2007
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
On 7 March 2007, when asked about the contradiction between your recollection of Mr Murray being invited to this meeting and Mr Murray’s evidence under oath, you said:
I gave an account of the meeting under oath to the coroner as well and I stand by it.
Chief Minister, there is no mention of the police being invited to this meeting in your evidence to the inquiry. Why was the Chief Police Officer not invited to the meeting?
MR STANHOPE: I did not arrange or call the meeting. I do not know who did. I presume it was a matter of moment to the coroner. I did not call the meeting. It was not my place to call the meeting. This matter, of course, has been agitated before the coroner over four years, at a cost of $10 million. If the opposition believe that the coroner has been remiss in not pursuing this particular issue or question, then that is an issue, of course, for the opposition. If the opposition is suggesting that this is a vital matter that the coroner should have pursued, then that is a matter between the opposition and the coroner.
The coroner undertook an extensive inquiry. It took four years. It cost $10 million. If there are issues around who called the meeting and who was invited that have not been resolved or agitated by the coroner, then essentially that is a matter for the coroner. It is not a matter for me. What I know and what I state now, and stated earlier this week, is that when I arrived at the Emergency Services Authority I was informed that a meeting had been convened and that an important and vital attendee at that meeting was the Chief Police Officer. I do not know who informed me of that or advised me but, in the course of that conversation, it was indicated that the meeting should not commence until the Chief Police Officer arrived.
Why those that were responsible for the meeting—namely, the senior executives of the Emergency Services Authority—were advising or informing me that the meeting should not commence until the Chief Police Officer arrived, if he had not been invited or they were not expecting his attendance, is something I simply cannot explain. But, in the context of why we were awaiting the Chief Police Officer and where it was that he may have been that was causing his delay, I was informed at the time that the meeting could not commence in the absence of the Chief Police Officer. So there was certainly an expectation.
Whether or not he had been invited is a matter that I cannot respond to. There was an expectation amongst those, conveyed to me, that the meeting should not commence until the Chief Police Officer arrived. The Chief Police Officer was in Sydney and they were awaiting his return from Sydney so that the meeting could commence. I did posit the interesting question earlier this week: I do not know why the Chief Police Officer was in Sydney. I do not even know if he was there. I was told that that was where he was. I was told that the Chief Police Officer was in Sydney and that the meeting was delayed whilst we awaited the return of the Chief Police Officer from Sydney to Canberra.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .