Page 3706 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 26 August 2009
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MR CORBELL: It is an incredibly low bar. Just because a government member portrays an opposition position in a particular way and characterises it in a particular way, does that warrant a censure? Does that warrant an admonishment? Does that warrant the need for an apology? I think the answer is no. And we will not be supporting either the absurd motion or the absurd amendment.
MR SESELJA (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (3.11): What we have heard from Mr Corbell just then is really conceding the point. The defence now is that this is real politics; that this is just politics; that you can make these statements; you can make these statements as a minister; you can make these statements on ministerial letterhead and it should not matter. On Mr Corbell’s argument, ministers should be able to say whatever they like; they should be able to use ministerial letterheads to write to stakeholders, write to the community, to say whatever they like because it is just politics. That is not what this is.
This is a complete and deliberate misrepresentation of what was said; it is using and abusing the office of minister for education in order to score a cheap political point. We understand the desire of the government to score cheap political points but that does not excuse behaviour which is designed to deliberately mislead the community and which bears little, if any, resemblance to the truth. That is the debate we are having here.
Mr Corbell, in his defence, has actually failed to defend the statement, except to say that this kind of behaviour should be allowed; that it really does not matter; that misrepresentations and mischaracterisations are acceptable.
Mr Hanson: Low bar, they call it.
MR SESELJA: Low bar, indeed! What we have is a very simple scenario which has been put and, it appears, broadly accepted now by the Greens—and certainly we accept Mr Doszpot’s argument—that what was done by the minister was inappropriate; that it was in breach of the ministerial code of conduct and does need to be rectified. We take the view that it does warrant censure. We take a different view to the Greens. But it appears that what we do agree on is that there does need to be a very clear statement from the Assembly that this kind of behaviour is unacceptable.
We only need to look at what Mr Doszpot said and then what Mr Barr said to see why this is important. Mr Doszpot said:
The ACT Education Act 2004 clearly states that education should aim to develop every child’s potential and maximise educational achievements. This would also apply to non-government students. The ACT Human Rights Act 2004 also applies to all students with a disability.
That is what he said. This is what Mr Barr had to say:
I have made abundantly clear in the Legislative Assembly that the government opposes suggestions by the Liberal Party’s spokesman that I should use the Human Rights Act 2004 as a way of the government taking over non-government school teaching and curriculum.
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