Page 4337 - Week 10 - Thursday, 22 September 2011
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Let me keep going. I can quote. Mr Barr could not quote from my press release, because there is nothing in the press release to quote from or Mr Barr is already eyeing that top job. He will set up a straw man so that this whole issue is back in the media again so that the question, the very serious issue of the Chief Minister fronting a privileges committee, is back in the media. It is curious that Mr Barr is moving this motion.
But I went on to say:
But I think the point is that the committee found that there was interference, and that is something that is not to be tolerated.
Why is it not to be tolerated? Because it is improper conduct. I then went on to say:
I would simply say that if we do not take a stand today, what you will do is leave the door open for the corruption of the committee process into the future. And that, members, is unacceptable.
Not only is it unacceptable, that sort of corruption, it is improper conduct. I said:
Members, as a consequence, I have now moved this morning to establish a select committee to inquire as to whether the Chief Minister has committed a breach of privilege through interfering in the committee process
Again, what I talked about was improper conduct. It is in the motion that I moved. I will quote from the motion. Mr Barr cannot quote from my press release. He did not quote a single grab reported in the media, whether it be in the Canberra Times, on the radio stations or on the TV. Why? Because he is wrong and he knows it.
The Chief Minister opened her defence on Tuesday by saying that this was just politics”. It was not. The Assembly decided that there was a case to answer and that it should go to the privileges committee.
This is just politics and I am not sure whether it is internal Labor Party politics, trying to raise the profile of the issue so that the Chief Minister is even further embarrassed by her colleague sitting on her right or whether it is a sham or a flimsy attempt to embarrass me. I have to tell you, I am not embarrassed. I am not embarrassed at all. I will stand up for the committee system, even though those opposite do not.
When you bring censure motions, the whole point is you make a case. It is not just verbiage. Mr Barr is very good at verbiage and is very good at spin, but he is not very good on substance. He did not have a single fact, except his own opinion, to put to this case today—not a single fact, not a single quote, not one word did he quote from my press release. Did he quote a series of words, a phrase, a whole sentence, a whole paragraph? No, he did not. Why did he not? Because none of it suits his case. And this is the sham of the Deputy Chief Minister.
Deputy leaders are meant to support the Chief Minister or the leader, whoever it is in the case, and I want members to cast their minds back to Tuesday morning when we
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