Page 2326 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 23 June 2010
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (7.40): In speaking to this, unless I get the indication that anyone else wants to speak again, I choose to close because the comments that I would make would be the comments that I would make in closing. And can I ask your indulgence, Mr Assistant Speaker, in that when we get to vote on this can we divide these two issues? I do not have a strong view about (a) but I have very strong views about (b). And I will tell you why.
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Mr Hargreaves): Mrs Dunne, before you proceed, with respect, I think if you wish to have the question divided that needs to be done at a time, which is about now.
MRS DUNNE: In accordance with the standing orders, could the question in relation to Mr Rattenbury’s amendments to my motion be divided when we come to vote on them?
Ordered that the question be divided.
MRS DUNNE: Thank you. I close the debate, if everyone is agreeable. Mr Stanhope is absolutely correct. The reason that I am opposing the omission of paragraph 1(d) is simply that there is disinformation out there. We heard it on the radio the other day, when someone who was opposed to the cull went out and said that the code of practice for culling kangaroos in the ACT said X, Y and Z when it does not. And that sort of thing happens over and over again. They use emotive language. What they were saying was that we allow people to beat joeys around the head, beat them to death around the head, and that is not correct.
The code of practice does not allow that but somebody was able to get on the radio and say that. Luckily, the journalist who was interviewing her was able to challenge that because they obviously had access to the code of practice.
But it is not just that. Mr Stanhope is right. I know that Mr Stanhope has been pilloried and has been threatened. But it is not actually about us. We get paid to do that. That is what we are paid for. But officials who work in the Department of Territory and Municipal Services do not get paid for that. It is the case that recently, at the instigation of the commissioner for the environment, a webpage had to be taken down because it contained a picture of the commissioner for the environment and other officials, with encouragement to go out and to abuse these people in various ways.
That is unacceptable and that is what I am talking about there. If we remove this, we actually say to people that it is all right to conduct a public debate in those terms. It is all right to lie. It is all right to threaten public officials who are just doing their job. Some of those people I have worked with for 15 years and I have great regard for their scholarship and their learning and the work that they do. They should not be put in a place where their names and addresses and photographs go up on a webpage and people are encouraged to take reprisals against them.
It is worth putting on the record that that is what happens. If the Greens support that, they should come out and say it, because that is what has happened and that is the
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video