Page 3576 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 25 August 2009
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these public servants should even be afforded the basic right of legal representation, let alone that the government of the day should respect their right to pursue their case to the full extent of the laws of the territory.
Opposition members interjecting—
MR STANHOPE: We all recall the disgraceful Liberal attacks on the child protection workers who have come to our city from the United Kingdom—professionals who have come half way around the world to care for our most vulnerable children. And what do the Liberals do? They play grubby politics with the issue. They play grubby politics with people’s professions, people’s careers and people’s lives. They are so grubby that my colleague the minister, Andrew Barr, felt obliged to apologise in person to those workers on the government’s behalf.
Opposition members interjecting—
MR STANHOPE: The attacks on public servants continue. Just last week, Mr Smyth was voicing his concern that an inquiry into the sale of the Labor clubs would be undertaken by—heaven forbid!—a public servant, the independent head of the Gambling and Racing Commission. How shocking that a public servant be trusted to do the job for which he or she is employed and for which he or she is trained. How shocking!
Opposition members interjecting—
MR STANHOPE: Still, it is all a bit of a pattern on Mr Smyth’s part, a pattern of opposition for opposition’s sake, a pattern of attacks that show quite clearly that he does not care who gets in the way or who gets hurt or whose reputation is left in tatters, so long as there is a slim chance he might land a glancing blow—
Ms Porter: Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order under standing order 37. Can order be maintained, please?
MR SPEAKER: Thank you. Chief Minister, continue.
MR STANHOPE: Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is a pattern of attacks that quite clearly shows that Mr Smyth does not care who gets in the way or who gets hurt or whose reputation is left in tatters so long as there is a slim chance that he might land a glancing blow on a member of the government. Of course, the blows never land; they miss by a mile.
But the body count of tattered reputations among our public servants continues to mount. Just a few weeks ago Mr Smyth could not resist launching a very personal attack on the then head of the Emergency Services Authority. Mr Smyth was reported in the Canberra Times, a very august and reliable journal, as saying that he had lost all confidence in the chief executive of the ESA. Twenty-four hours later that public servant resigned. It is a pattern of vicious behaviour, a pattern of opposition for the sake of opposition and careless of consequences.
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