Page 3784 - Week 10 - Thursday, 27 August 2009
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MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (10.20): There is more about the way that this inquiry was conducted in the minutes than is contained in the report. Throughout the inquiry, I felt the need to dissent as decisions were made. The first decision was that the committee decided that there would be no hearings. I think it is unfortunate in a matter like this that were no hearings, that this was done behind closed doors. It is unfortunate that much of the evidence was dismissed.
The story is this: a press release was put out that the head of health objected to. He sent to Mr Hanson a letter which Mr Hanson objected to and raised, ultimately, as a matter of privilege in this place. That was found and the committee was set up to inquire into what had happened.
I do not believe that you can actually look at whether there is contempt unless you look at the circumstances in which the original item, the press release, came to be. And that came to be because Mr Hanson, as he says in his evidence, felt that he had been misled and that there was a cover-up by the Department of Health, that his press release questioned what the minister was doing in her role and that his press release was about the minister. That the department took exception is up to the department.
But in this place we normally play between member and member, minister and member, and that is the playing field that we have. If we wanted to talk to a public servant, we would have to go through the minister. But what we have now is a different set of rules where the public servants can come back at members but members, in theory, always have to go back through the minister. That is what is wrong with the approach that the committee took and that is why I dissented to many of the findings of the committee.
The very fact, for instance, we did not get a submission from and did not call for a submission from the minister to tell her part in this concerns me. When I moved that, it was voted down. It is quite interesting because during the recall day of the estimates I actually asked the minister why, in the normal form of this place where the interaction is between minister and member, did she not write. The transcript reads:
MR SMYTH: Why did you not write to Mr Hanson?
MS GALLAGHER: I am writing to Mr Hanson.
MR SMYTH: You will?
MS GALLAGHER: I am currently formulating my letter.
To the best of my knowledge, that letter has never been sent.
This leads to my concern that we have got a minister who is hiding behind her department. When she is held to account, she goes into hiding. It is a shame that the committee never looked at that because they are the events that triggered this whole matter.
When we look at contempt and privilege, perhaps the only thing I did agree with the committee on was that it was not a matter of privilege. But I do believe it is a matter
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