Page 815 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 16 March 2010
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
documents, and hundreds of pages turn up. He says, “How was I to know about everything?” That was his response in the paper. He said, “If you think that I’m going to know about every email, well, you’ve got rocks in your head.” Those were his words.
You do not come into the Assembly and give information when either you know it is incorrect or you do not know whether it is correct or not. You do not come in and give information and not care about whether you are telling the truth. You have a responsibility to get to the bottom of it. You have a responsibility to seek briefings. You have a responsibility to ask questions.
But it goes further than that, Madam Assistant Speaker, because it is not just about some emails, some other correspondence and an MOU that he did not know about. This minister sought a briefing in relation to the scheme. On the back of that briefing which he received, he wrote a letter to Peter Garrett in relation to the scheme. He received a letter back from Mr Garrett in relation to the scheme. He then came into this place and said, “There are no documents.” And when he got caught out, he said, “Well, I wasn’t to know about some emails or some file notes in some bottom drawer somewhere that some junior officer within some department had pulled out.”
First and foremost, he had a responsibility to find out. Second, he signed documents; he received a briefing. So he sought a briefing, he received a briefing, he wrote a letter to Peter Garrett, he received a letter from Peter Garrett, but he came in here and said: “I know nothing. The scheme, we don’t administer it. We don’t have any documents in relation to it.” That was wrong; that was a mislead; that was a persistent mislead of this place.
We in the Canberra Liberals believe that the integrity of our process relies on honest answers, on up-front answers from ministers. We have to be able to rely on the information which is given to us in this place, particularly at times such as question time where we seek information on behalf of the community from ministers.
This minister failed to tell the truth on a number of occasions, and his defence has been blown out of the water. His defence, firstly, was that there were no documents and he claimed, “Well, I shouldn’t have known about them.” Well, you had to ask. Secondly, we know that he personally signed and received some of these documents.
This is a minister who has misled the Assembly. This is a clear case of misleading the Assembly. We will get to some of his other defences, but I will go to the other part of this motion. It goes to whether there were complaints, because we have heard a lot of shifting of the position from Mr Corbell on this issue on a number of occasions. Mr Corbell on several occasions said: “There are no complaints about dodgy installation. There are no complaints about poor installation.”
We asked him for a simple answer to this: have there been complaints? Have there been complaints about poor installation? This is what he said. These are quotes from the Assembly:
There have not been any matters brought to the attention of ACT regulatory authorities about poor installation. Mr Speaker, I have already answered that question.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video