Page 1264 - Week 05 - Thursday, 31 May 2007
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MR SPEAKER: Order, members! Mr Barr, please direct your comments through the chair.
MR BARR: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I apologise.
MR SPEAKER: Mrs Dunne, cease interjecting.
MR BARR: All I can say is that it is unfortunate Mrs Dunne has sought to raise it to this level. I am very sorry for the school and for the students involved that it has been brought to the Legislative Assembly in this way. That is unfortunate and I apologise to them. But all I can say is that throughout this process we have sought to engage with Mrs Dunne and with the parents and that the department has been very forthcoming in its processes of investigation and has responded quickly to this matter.
I do not see the point in Mrs Dunne taking the approach she has and I am sorry this has happened. But I stand by the position that I put to the Assembly yesterday and the advice I provided Mrs Dunne. But, as I said, I will get the department to have one more look at this and if there is contrary advice provided I will immediately return to the Assembly and correct the record; but at this stage I have no reason to do anything other than stand by the statement I made in the Assembly yesterday.
MR STEFANIAK (Ginninderra—Leader of the Opposition) (11.00): Whilst I am grateful, given the numbers in this place, that Mr Barr has at least made that concession, he still misses the point. The point is that it is the tradition in this place, and in all similar parliaments, that a minister corrects the record as soon as possible. The matter itself does not really come into the equation and that is why in this debate no-one is mentioning the school or the people concerned or anything like that.
The principle is quite clear. In Erskine May at page 74 it is stated:
It is of paramount importance that ministers give accurate and truthful information to parliament, correcting any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity.
The ministerial code of conduct, which applies to ministers in this place, also states at page 2:
Ministers should take reasonable steps to ensure the factual content of statements they make in the Assembly are soundly based and that they correct any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity.
There might be a few new ones who do not, but certainly those of us who have been around for a while do, know—several on the government benches have done this; certainly Mr Smyth and I have when we have been ministers—that you do not get completely accurate information all the time. It is not completely uncommon for a minister to not have all the facts to make a statement in all good faith and so then has to correct it later, and the tradition is that it is corrected at the earliest opportunity.
In this matter Mrs Dunne did advise the minister earlier this morning—I would assume after she got his letter of 30 May, which I have read and which I do not think
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