Page 625 - Week 03 - Thursday, 15 March 2007
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I must say that I do find it passing strange that the Liberal Party in this place, with the level of turnover of staff in their offices over the last couple of years, would actually cast aspersions about other people moving on. It would be educational to go through each office of the Liberal Party over the last few years and discuss who it was that has left, how many have left and the reasons they left; how many actions of false dismissal there have been; and how many actions for other unacceptable employment practices there have been.
Mr Pratt: I raise a point of order under standing order 118 (b) as to relevance.
MR STANHOPE: How many actions for defamation have been pursued in relation to people that have left your employment?
Mr Pratt: The Chief Minister has gone 10 light-years away from the question, Mr Speaker. See if you can drag him back. You cannot answer it, of course. That is why.
MR SPEAKER: Draw the connection with the subject matter of the question.
MR STANHOPE: I will conclude, Mr Speaker. To suggest that, as a result of departures from a particular authority, the minister should be asked to leave his job is patently absurd. It is absurd to suggest that the minister with administrative responsibility for a function should resign because people have left their employment.
To pursue that argument to its logical conclusion, if the minister were to resign because a number of senior executives have left the Emergency Services Agency, what responsibility will you take for the churn within your offices: the lawsuits for false dismissal—we will not go into Mrs Burke’s particular lawsuit—and the defamation actions which have been brought? Mr Smyth is up to his third defamation action now. Is it not remarkable that in a reasonably short political career he has now been dragged through the courts for defamation on three separate occasions? I think we could compare their response to this issue with this government’s—(Time expired.)
MR PRATT: Mr Speaker, I have a supplementary question.
MR SPEAKER: I call Mr Gentleman.
MR PRATT: I did not resume my seat, Mr Speaker.
Members interjecting—
MR PRATT: I put the wrong glasses on, Katy; I was looking for my notes.
Mr Barr: Crouching tiger, hidden dragon!
Mr Hargreaves: And you just lost your seat, Steve.
MR SPEAKER: Order, members! Mr Hargreaves!
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