Page 1141 - Week 03 - Thursday, 26 February 2009
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MRS DUNNE: I have not said anything about the motion except in passing.
Mr Seselja: And it was his original motion.
MRS DUNNE: And the original motion was not passed.
MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER: I remind you not to reflect on the motion and the vote, thank you.
MRS DUNNE: I am not, I assure you.
Mr Seselja: On the point of order, Madam Assistant Speaker: I do not think there is anything in the standing orders about reflecting on a motion that goes down. The Chief Minister’s motion as originally moved went down. I think that Mrs Dunne is quite free to reflect on that.
MRS DUNNE: For the Chief Minister to insist, as he did in his original motion, that names and addresses of constituents should be presented in the way that he demanded is an arbitrary interference in their privacy and could possibly be unlawful. And how outraged would Jon Stanhope private citizen be if he had written to his local member and his correspondence was treated in the way that he was asking for?
We need to remember the applications of the Privacy Act in the ACT. The principles say:
A record-keeper who has possession or control of a record that contains personal information that was obtained for a particular purpose shall not use the information for any other purpose …
Principle 11 says:
A record-keeper … shall not disclose the information to a person, body or agency …
By demanding the names and addresses as he intended in his original motion, this is what the Chief Minister blew apart—these important privacy principles.
Once again, the Chief Minister, the champion of personal privacy, has been hysterically hypocritical. It is probably time the Chief Minister took himself off to the Assembly’s ethics adviser and sought advice on whether this conduct was appropriate. I hope that in future we do not see a repeat of it.
Legislative Assembly—members
MR SESELJA (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (5.43): I would like to speak briefly in response to Ms Hunter, going after my colleague Mr Coe for a very legitimate criticism of Ms Porter. I am not going to make judgements on Ms Porter’s overall performance as a member—that is for the people of Ginninderra to do—but I think that we in this place will make judgements about what is written by members in their press releases and what they say in the media.
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