Page 3359 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 14 November 2007
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can sometimes be a delay. But if in any way I have confused by a matter of a day or two one week a Saturday versus the following week—seriously, if you are going to pick me up on a day here, I will apologise to the Assembly if anyone believes that the statement I made then, that I was in fact contacted by the media on Saturday the 27th, was incorrect. I am not entirely sure which day it was that the Canberra Times first approached but I do know that they decided not to run with the story for some time because they believed—
Mr Pratt: Because you were still busily covering it all up.
MR BARR: They accepted the position that I put, that the department put and the school put to them—that there was no truth to the story. The reason, it seems—and there are allegations out there that in fact a particular interstate media outlet ran the story—was that there were financial inducements offered to the family to make their statements. That is the issue that should be of greatest concern. There are rumours, in fact repeated by the family concerned to the school, that financial inducements were offered by media organisations from interstate for their story; that there were people from interstate media outlets out touting for the business.
As I indicated in my answer yesterday, I think you can take it as a pretty fair indication of whether a story is true or not when A Current Affair decide there is nothing in it and they do not run it. A show renowned more for its entertainment value than for its hard-hitting news and current affairs: when that sort of a media organisation determines that there is nothing in a story—that in fact it is simply a massive beat-up, fuelled, it would seem, if the rumours and the stories that have been told to the school by the family concerned are correct—that financial inducements were offered, my advice to the shadow minister in this instance would be to accept the position of the principal of the school and of the other people who have commented on this matter and to work with the rest of the school community, the department of education and the government to assist this student in the two most important things for this student: finishing year 10 and quitting smoking.
I do not think the approach by the shadow minister is helping that at all. I do not believe that that is helping the situation at all. As I indicated at the beginning of this answer, I first heard about it on Saturday the 27th and sought advice and subsequently had that advice confirmed that from the school’s perspective no such situation ever occurred whereby the school gave permission for the student to smoke. So the entire basis of the story was factually incorrect. So, if the expectation is that I as minister am going to respond to every facetious story that happens to make its way into News Ltd papers, and that I have to deny every straw man that is put up—
Mr Stanhope: You’re not attacking the Telegraph, are you?
MR BARR: I could well be, Chief Minister. If that is the default position—that it is the responsibility of the minister to deny every story that is manufactured—that is just an incredibly ridiculous position to expect of any minister, to have to get up and deny things that are fundamentally not true. It is the “when did you stop beating your wife?” or “when did you start beating your wife?” sort of analogy, isn’t it? It is just outrageous, and this line of questioning from Mrs Dunne to try to manufacture something is again disappointing.
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