Page 2292 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 16 June 2009
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statutory responsibilities of public servants. These are serious defamations. The defamation of Mr Cormack and his staff, those involved in the administration of the Freedom of Information Act, is implicit in these allegations. The press release states:
The only rational explanation to remove these words—
the logical extension is that these words were removed by public servants—
was to cover up …
There is an allegation that officers within the department of health are deliberately engaging in a cover-up. The defamation continues. The press release concludes:
This shows yet another shameful attempt …
A shameful attempt by whom—by a public servant, most particularly identified as the head of that department, Mr Cormack. In the words of the Liberal Party, this is a shameful attempt by officers within the department of health to cover up, in other words, to not actually meet a statutory requirement or obligation on them.
Let us be under no misapprehension here. Those claims and statements can only be read as being directed at public servants in the department of health—those identifiable officers in the department of health who administer the Freedom of Information Act within the department of health. That is why I say this is actionable, because those public servants are identified to their colleagues.
Here is a claim made and broadcast to the world at large that the Liberal Party believes that Mr Cormack and those officers within the department of health that administer the Freedom of Information Act engaged in a deliberate cover-up for political purposes; in other words, that they lack integrity, that they do not administer a statute consistent with their statutory obligations or responsibilities, that they have corrupted the system, that they have not acted professionally with integrity and in a way one expects a public servant to act.
The head of that department, obviously concerned at allegations made publicly about the way in which he and his department administer the Freedom of Information Act—that they would engage themselves in a political cover-up, that they are not professional, that they lack integrity, that they are not to be trusted, that they as public servants engaged in behaviour of that order—wrote a reasonable and polite letter to the person who perpetrated that defamation. To give some reflection of the mood in which he wrote the letter, he even addresses it “Dear Jeremy”. He says, “I am writing to let you know that you are wrong.” He did a private letter—a private letter from the head of the department of health to the person who he believed was making a serious mistake which he, Mr Cormack—
Mr Hanson: The minister was not aware of it then, it was so private.
MR STANHOPE: Well, it was not. But I am aware of it now because you have actually traduced his reputation.
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