Page 4005 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 20 September 2011
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The likelihood of it going forward does not exist because Ms Le Couteur has shown us the way there, if it has not happened already as a precedent. The likelihood of a campaign to influence a committee can be dealt with at the time that it occurs. Mr Speaker, this is a very serious issue and we should just say to Mr Smyth, “Thanks but no thanks.”
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development, Minister for Territory and Municipal Services and Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (10.27): Mr Speaker, the case has not been made out this morning for the establishment of this privileges inquiry. The fact is that the Chief Minister’s statement of 31 May this year said nothing more than the facts.
What did the Chief Minister’s statement say? It said that the government was announcing the proposed, and I emphasise “proposed”, appointment of Dr Maxine Cooper to the office of the ACT Auditor-General. It went on to say that section 8 of the Auditor-General Act requires written notice of the proposed appointment to the public accounts committee of the Assembly and inviting the committee to consider the proposed appointment.
The Chief Minister said on 31 May:
I have written to the Chair of PAC informing them of the Government’s nominee for Auditor-General of the ACT and I look forward to formalising the appointment once the PAC has considered our recommendation.
Those are the facts, Mr Speaker. That is what the Chief Minister’s statement was. It was a statement of the facts.
This is an important appointment. This is an appointment that attracts significant interest in the broader community. It was entirely reasonable for the Chief Minister to advise the community of who the government was proposing for appointment to the PAC. The question that Mr Smyth has to answer and that the Liberal Party have to answer is this: how does that media statement constitute undue or improper influence?
What Mr Smyth is arguing is that in his view, there may have been a contempt. Contempt is set out in the standing orders. Standing order 277 and, in particular, standing order 277(a) is relevant. The standing order states:
A person shall not improperly interfere with the free exercise by the Assembly or a committee of its authority, or with the free performance by a Member of the Member’s duties as a Member.
Mr Smyth has to make out how the issuing of that factual press release constitutes an improper interference with the activities, in this case, of the public accounts committee. Concepts of undue influence come into play here, Mr Speaker. Undue influence is generally understood to mean that a person is induced not to act of his or her own free will. How is it, Mr Speaker, that the issuing of a factual press release stating a proposed appointment and making it clear that the appointment was contingent on the comments of the public accounts committee, consistent with the Auditor-General Act, constitute an undue influence? The case simply is not made out.
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