Page 4344 - Week 10 - Thursday, 22 September 2011
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But Mr Barr brought this motion forward and he comes to this Assembly with virtually no notice and he calls Mr Smyth a liar. He calls Mr Smyth a liar, and he cannot back it up with a shred of evidence. Instead he throws out a bunch of slurs about Mr Smyth—unfounded allegations. We should actually be turning it around and censuring Mr Barr for his unfounded statements in the Assembly today. We could go on forever.
The government cannot be expected to be taken seriously on a serious issue like this. Imagine if the opposition came with a censure motion and said, “The Chief Minister has misled,” and we did not actually point out what she had said. When we move censure motions, we back them up. We point out the contradiction—“They said one thing, but this thing is true.” They could not point to one thing that he said that is misleading. It was left to Mr Hargreaves to come in and say, “Well, because he put out a press release, he’s therefore guilty.”
Mr Hargreaves: Yes.
MR SESELJA: There it is. Mr Hargreaves says, “Yes; he put out a press release.” I do not know if he has thought about the logic here, but Mr Hargreaves has made the case that, if Mr Smyth is censured, Ms Gallagher is guilty. That is the case that he has put forward for us today in defending his Chief Minister.
Who would you prefer to have defending you? Andrew Barr or John Hargreaves? Do you want the Deputy Chief Minister, who does not come down when his Chief Minister is under pressure but who draws more attention to the fact that there is a serious claim to be answered by the Chief Minister? Or do you want Mr Hargreaves at the back declaring that the Chief Minister is guilty? He declares her guilty by his own words. If he is going to vote for his motion that Mr Smyth is guilty because he put out a press release, by the same logic he is concluding that the Chief Minister is guilty. How ridiculous. Are we seriously going to waste the Assembly’s time on these kinds of unfounded motions?
Let us actually look at what was said by the committee. Again, Mr Barr, in his six-minute case with no substance, could not point to what Mr Smyth said. He threw out some slurs, but actually kept saying, “It’s because Mr Smyth has made an allegation against Ms Gallagher.” Actually, that is not quite true. What has happened is the majority of a committee of this Assembly was of the view that the matter raised by Mr Smyth had caused interference with its work. It went on to say that, if it was regarded as a precedent and repeated, such action could cause substantial interference.
It is not Mr Smyth on his own bringing this case against Ms Gallagher. Let us get the facts right. Who brought this case? Mr Smyth brought it to the attention of the Speaker, as is his responsibility. The Speaker wrote to the committee. Mr Smyth does not control the committee; he is but one member of that committee. That committee came back and said, “Actually, yes, interference; interference in our operations.” Then what happened? Mr Speaker brought it back to this Assembly and said that because this committee had concluded there had been interference in its work, the matter warranted precedence. That is no insignificant issue in and of itself. The Assembly
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