Page 2293 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 16 June 2009
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Mr Hanson: The health minister.
MR STANHOPE: Of course she is aware of it now. You want to drag Mr Cormack before a privileges committee. You want to destroy his reputation more than you have already done. That is at the heart of this. We are talking here about the most senior officer of the department of health, the most respected chief executive that we have, and you want to drag him, you want to humiliate him, you want him to be subjected to questioning by a privileges committee on why he wrote a polite letter—“Dear Jeremy”, not “Mr Hanson”—saying, “I need to let you know that you are wrong. These claims that you made are simply wrong. It is not the case that we engaged in a political cover-up. You need to understand that these claims that you made have the possibility of seriously compromising my reputation and the reputation of officers of my department. It would be appropriate, in the first place, having regard to your mistaken notion of how the Freedom of Information Act operates, for you to appeal the decision that we have made.”
Mr Cormack goes to some length to say, “If you do not like the decision, appeal it. You need to understand the decisions were not made by the minister, so that your press release and your statements, your public statements, are wrong and false. If you do not like the decision, appeal the decision, but you need to understand that it is false.” This is the only reasonable conclusion to be drawn from your press release. In his letter Mr Cormack says:
Given that the Minister has played no role in this FOI application, and the FOI application process has been handled exclusively by ACT Health, it would be reasonable for a member of the public to assume that ACT Health is the object of your claims of “cover up” and “misuse of process”. I am prepared to accept—
this is the extent of his politeness and his professionalism—
that you may not have intended this interpretation. Nevertheless it is an interpretation that is open to be made by a reasonable person.
Fourthly, (and for the sake of completeness)—
he does not state, of course, that it is to protect his reputation and that of his officers—
I categorically reject as baseless and untrue any allegation that I or any ACT Health officers responsible for dealing with this FOI application have participated in a “cover up” or “misuse of process”.
There we have it. A public servant concerned for his own reputation and that of his officers, for whom he has responsibility, seeks to correct the record and to have a damaging and defamatory allegation withdrawn from publication.
And what is the response of those that made the damaging and defamatory application? The response is to compound the defamation with the support of the Greens. The response is to compound the belittling of this public servant and his officers. The response is actually to belittle him further. The response is to actually
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