Page 491 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 10 February 2009
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This Code provides guidance to Ministers on how they should act and arrange their affairs in order to uphold these standards.
The code goes on to outline the general obligations of ministers, the first of which listed is “respect for the law and the system of government”. The first sentence of the discussion of this ministerial obligation reads:
Ministers will uphold the laws of the Australian Capital Territory and Australia, and will not be a party to their breach, evasion, or subversion.
We are here today, Mr Speaker, because Simon Corbell, the Attorney-General of the ACT, has sought to subvert the laws of the ACT for his own base political gain. Sadly, the Stanhope government’s ministerial code of conduct is honoured more in the breach than in the observance and its most recent example is the outrageous statements made by the Attorney-General.
Let us look at the facts. On Tuesday, 3 February on ABC 666 Mr Corbell was being interviewed about the human rights audit at the BRC and what the government would do in response to that. In response to a direct question about the incident the previous week—on 30 January—the Attorney-General of the ACT went out of his way to express his views and what he represented to be the views of the whole government about the guilt of two men. In so doing, the Attorney-General of the ACT, the first law officer, committed sub judice contempt. On radio station 666 the Attorney-General clearly stated his views about the guilt of the men who had recently been charged.
This was a live matter before the courts and the Attorney was breaking all the rules, all the laws, all the conventions. One statement like this could have been considered an unfortunate lapse, and I think that at this stage the interviewer tried to interpose himself because he was obviously aware of the grave import of what the Attorney-General had said.
But this Attorney—this man, Simon Corbell—was not to be distracted from his mission. His mission was to make it perfectly clear what he thought the nature of the incident at the BRC had been and he spoke over the interviewer to press his case and to make it perfectly clear.
The Attorney reinforced over the interviewer his position by saying that this was the government’s view and the view of Corrective Services and that there was no doubt about it. What we have here today is the Attorney-General, the person who is supposed to uphold the law and the human rights of the people of the ACT, convicting someone—saying that someone is guilty—before the matter is tried in court.
As if it was not enough, several hours later when this matter was raised by the media the Attorney-General strove to press home his point—this time standing in front of an ABC television camera and repeating the accusation. It was an accusation that was aired on ABC national television news on 3 February. The Attorney-General’s actions were clear, unambiguous and repeated.
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