Page 4007 - Week 09 - Thursday, 26 August 2010
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
was sent at 4.30 yesterday afternoon to Ms Burch, hand delivered. Ms Burch needs to go back and ask her office why they were not taking this seriously, because when these matters are sent by a letter, hand delivered, they are considered to be serious matters.
Now if we want to erode how ministers operate and if we want to erode the standard of accountability and ultimately erode Westminster in that regard, that is well and good, but let us tell people that is how it is. Let us tell people that what we say in this place does not matter, because if you have got the numbers you can just wipe that away. It is not how it works. I would expect that, when somebody is challenged, they go away and they check. We would expect that. If appropriate, they should apologise. A number of people on both sides have done that over time, but we are not getting that today.
The excuse, as I heard it, seemed to be, “I was talking about the process of assessment.” That is patently untrue. The question from Ms Porter was:
My question is to the Minister for Ageing. Can the minister inform the Assembly about the progress in the development of the stimulus funded older persons accommodation?
What is the process? Answer the question: where is the process at? “Well, it is completed for the 13 homes in Macquarie,” and that is untrue. So when you come down and you obfuscate in this way, you do not bring any of us in this place any credit. You particularly do not bring the standard of ministerial responsibility any credit, and you particularly do not bring the code of conduct for ministers any acknowledgement that it is being taken seriously.
I would ask the Greens to reconsider their position. If you go back over what Ms Burch said this morning, she again attempts to obfuscate. If it was a word in error—the Chief Minister said, “You’ve missed one word”—a misunderstanding of one word can lead to all sorts of outcomes—for example, a misunderstanding of what “no” means. The Japanese in 1945 used a Japanese word to ask the Americans for more time to consider whether they would surrender. The American interpretation of the word used was “get lost”, so they dropped two bombs on Japan. One word can make an awful lot of difference. But regardless of whether it is a large difference or a small difference, it is whether or not you can believe something that a minister says.
It would be a sad day in this place where we had to go and word by word, line by line, paragraph by paragraph, speech by speech, go and check everything a minister says. But, in Ms Burch’s case, that may well be where we are heading. Because if you cannot even get this right in your own dixer and if you have not got the courage just to come say, “Okay, fair cop; I got it wrong; I apologise”—as Ms Gallagher did so graciously, which we accepted graciously, because that is how it is meant to be—then what we are doing is eroding the role of politicians in the territory and eroding all politicians in the process.
This is about compliance with the ministerial code of conduct. It is about an issue that has now been going since 19 August. It is about holding ministers to account. It is about how high or how low a bar we are willing to set in regard to adherence to Westminster and adherence to the ministerial code of conduct. It is about how we see
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video