Page 814 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 16 March 2010
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
knowledge of and actions in relation to the commonwealth home insulation scheme. Why he did this will be something for the minister to explain. We can only speculate on the motivation. Was it laziness? Was it an attempt to distance himself from the Rudd government scheme, or perhaps to cover up the shameful lack of information provided to the community by this minister and this government on the dangers and problems associated with the insulation scheme? Whatever the reason, it is clear that Mr Corbell misled the Assembly on several occasions.
Let us look at the facts in relation to this matter. First, Simon Corbell claimed that he knew nothing. He came into this place claiming that there were no documents. He said:
The government does not have documents in relation to the home insulation program because we do run the home insulation program.
That was his first mislead. He said there were no documents. He was wrong. In fact, when we pointed out that Peter Garrett had mentioned an MOU, I believe on that very day, and therefore there must have been documents, he wrote a letter to Assembly members to clarify. And I think there has never been a more disingenuous clarification letter, Madam Assistant Speaker. In the letter, he makes two incorrect claims, one implicit and one explicit. First, in the letter, he says this:
At the time I answered the question correctly …
No, you did not answer the question correctly. You gave misleading information to the Assembly. That is not a correct answer; that is an incorrect answer. That is a misleading answer, and he misleads again in this letter to members when he claims that what he said was actually correct. Whether he knew it was incorrect or not is something we will debate, and it is becoming increasingly clear that his case for knowing nothing is a very weak one. But he did not answer it correctly. So, having misled the Assembly the first time, having claimed there were no documents, he comes back to Assembly members and says, “Well, at the time I answered the question correctly.” Well, no, you did not. The letter then goes on to deal only with this MOU:
I was not informed by officials that they possessed any documents relating to the Commonwealth insulation installation program. The information provided by me to the Assembly on 11 February 2010 was based on the information provided to me by my Department.
He blames the public servants. As we will see as we go through these documents, this minister should have known. This minister signed letters which we will get to. This minister must have known. Any claim that he was not briefed talks to his incompetence as a minister in not asking the question and goes to his honesty as a minister, because we know that he was personally aware of a number of documents in relation to this scheme.
Let us again look at the facts in relation to this case. Mr Corbell comes in and says that there are no documents. He is caught out on day one: there is an MOU. He comes back with a disingenuous letter which does not clarify; it actually further misleads, claiming things were correct when they were not. We then had a motion to table the
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video