Page 686 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 24 February 2010
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That is not fact based. That is not living up to your responsibility as a minister. That is not living by the code of conduct. The minister should come clean and tell us exactly what was said in that meeting and what he did about it.
It seems to me that this is a minister who is hiding behind public servants. He has no commitment to the people that he is there to protect, but he also has no commitment to the officers that he should be backing up instead of hiding behind. It seems to me that he has no commitment to those fire officers who, as a result of the ineptitude of Peter Garrett and the federal government in their role over the program, are at risk because they are the ones that have to go and put these fires out or enter the crawl space in an attic that may be a live home. And he has absolutely no commitment to the people of the ACT to provide them with the safe environment that they deserve and that he as the minister is obligated to deliver.
When you become aware of a problem, you should fix it. That is ministerial responsibility. What we have is a minister who has never measured up to ministerial responsibility, who has been censured in this place for persistently and wilfully misleading the ACT Assembly and on a couple of other occasions. And it continues. What he said that day was not the truth.
Mr Corbell: Point of order, Madam Assistant Speaker. Mr Smyth asserted that I had misled previously and then he went on to say, “And this continues”—
Mr Seselja: Yes, a continuation.
Mr Corbell: implying that I am misleading the Assembly now. That is unparliamentary; it is—
Mrs Dunne: You admitted yesterday that you had misled the Assembly.
MR SMYTH: When did I actually say so?
MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ms Le Couteur): Let Mr Corbell finish.
Mr Corbell: It is a reflection on me; it is disorderly; he knows it is disorderly. It is an improper imputation and he should be asked to withdraw.
Mr Seselja: On the point of order, Madam Assistant Speaker, the standing orders say that, unless it is on a substantive motion, it is unparliamentary. This motion, which we are debating today, says that the Attorney-General misled the Assembly. That is part of what we are actually debating today, and Mr Smyth is free to make that argument. Maybe we could stop the clock.
MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Yes. Clerk, please stop the clock.
Mr Seselja: Mr Smyth is perfectly free to make the arguments. If Mr Corbell had bothered to read the motion, he would know that that is actually part of what we are debating.
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