Page 1684 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 21 August 2007
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
They are not offensive remarks, and on their own they do not need to be dealt with. But when you put them all together you find a litany of examples in the performance of this minister of these things being said to use up time, or to throw MLAs, as members of committees, opposition members and members of the cross-bench—the people who are put here by the people of the ACT to scrutinise processes—off balance in scrutinising those processes.
When we look at the history of the 2006 hearings, we see that Mr Hargreaves was a serial offender. There was some pretty offensive behaviour during those hearings. I refer to Mr Hargreaves’s comment that a question warranted the “dickhead comment of the week” award. So we are now beginning to move to the tier 2 level of behaviour, where the remarks do become offensive, very unparliamentary and reflect poorly on this place.
What do the public servants who sit behind the minister during the committee process think of this place when they hear their minister using that sort of language? Of course, it is language which is designed to throw people off-guard, to distract from the scrutiny process, to buy time, to use up the oxygen in a debate and perhaps to throw a scrutinising MLA off balance. It does not really work but it represents a lot of wasted time. In fact, it probably works to the extent that other very important questions that need to be asked have never been asked. That is the point. It is not simply about the offensive behaviour of personal attack; it is about the fact that the time that could be taken to ask follow-up or supplementary questions, to drill down on and scrutinise government and departmental performance, is lost, because we have to deal with the ridiculous behaviour of Mr Hargreaves.
I will prove here today to all members of this Assembly that Mr Hargreaves is a habitual offender on these matters, culminating in his rather disgraceful behaviour in this year’s estimates process. That is why this matter warrants being referred to a privileges committee pursuant to standing order 71. If this Assembly is a mature parliament that we can all be proud of, as it should be under the Westminster system, it will take the matter seriously. If members opposite are fair dinkum, they will surely vote in support of the motion I have moved today.
I will now give some examples of behaviour that occurred during the 2007 estimates process. After last year’s light rap over the knuckles for his serial performance—his obfuscation, distraction, diversion, giving offence and having a jolly good time at the expense of the Westminster process—this year Mr Hargreaves ramped up his behaviour to yet another level. I will point out a couple of examples to you now, Mr Speaker. Let us look at a couple of comments. In the first example, Mr Hargreaves said:
Thank you very much, Mr Chairman. I thank you for the warm welcome. I would also like to say good afternoon to fellow committee members. I bid a very good afternoon to those members of the fourth estate who are interrupting their sleep this afternoon and listening in to their television sets. I also bid a good afternoon to the chief grumbler, Mr Pratt.
That is all pretty amusing stuff, and I had a bit of a giggle, too. It is not particularly offensive, but there was then a cranking up to what became a totally disruptive
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .