Page 2285 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 16 June 2009
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to you that you got it wrong. This is a farce. This is a new low for this Assembly, Mr Speaker. To establish a privileges committee in these circumstances is political grandstanding; it is a farce; and it is without any substance whatsoever. We reject the suggestion and we will not be supporting the motion.
MS BRESNAN (Brindabella) (11.03): I move:
Omit all words after “pursuant to standing order 276”, substitute:
“a Select Committee on Privileges be established to examine whether:
(a) a breach of privilege or contempt has been committed by Mr Mark Cormack, Chief Executive of ACT Health, in relation to a letter he sent to Mr Hanson on 25 May 2009; or
(b) the letter was an appropriate response in the circumstances of Mr Hanson’s media release of 21 May 2009;
(2) the Committee shall report back to the Assembly on 18 August 2009; and
(3) the Committee shall be composed of:
(a) one member nominated by the Government;
(b) one member nominated by the Crossbench; and
(c) one member nominated by the Opposition;
notified to the Speaker by 4 p.m. on Tuesday, 16 June 2009.”.
I will be very brief. I am moving this amendment as the key issues of correspondence which have led to this privileges matter need to be examined. Also, it is obvious from the debate which has already occurred this morning over this time that the matter does need to be investigated further and the best means for this is through a committee.
MR SESELJA (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (11.03) Mr Hanson has given quite a detailed case with all the documents. We need to get back to some of the core facts, and there are some core facts here that no-one has actually disputed. We have not heard anything from Ms Gallagher or Mr Corbell on this matter. This started with the blacking out of certain words in an FOI document, a document provided to the opposition under freedom of information. What Mr Hanson commented about in his press release, and in the Assembly before that, was why it was appropriate to black out the politically sensitive words that in no way went to the issue of personal privacy. That was at the heart of this matter.
We have the government using the issue of personal privacy to black out words which were clearly politically sensitive. There was political sensitivity about these words; there is no doubt about it. We saw that play out in the media before this, we saw it play out in the hearings, and we saw it with the response to this. But what has not been refuted by anyone here is that those words were blacked out, and no-one has
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