Page 4360 - Week 10 - Thursday, 22 September 2011
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made no public statements on this matter. I have, as chair of PAC, signed some correspondence on this matter, some of which went to the Speaker, and I believe as such has been publicised in this arena. But I have made no public statements on this subject.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (4.06): Mr Speaker—
MR SPEAKER: Mr Smyth, you have already spoken.
MR SMYTH: It has been the practice in this place in the past for the person who is accused to seek leave in order to answer the case that has been made, and I would seek leave to speak again.
Leave granted.
MR SMYTH: Thank you, members. Mr Speaker, I always look forward to these sorts of debates, because it is important that we have robust debates about the behaviour of members. As I said when Mr Barr made his initial speech, I was looking forward to other members at least reading the press release and trying to use the words to make the case. I saw that Mr Corbell handed Mr Barr the press release so I expected Mr Barr would try and quote from the press release. Mr Hargreaves attempted to but, in the main, all Mr Hargreaves did was make the case that what I had done was correct. That is what we expect from Mr Hargreaves and we often thank Mr Hargreaves for it.
It was not until Ms Gallagher spoke in the third speech from those opposite that we finally got some of the quotes that I predicted. I suspect that there are two bits of confusion here. One of them is over the English language and the use of tense—past, present, future tense—and the other is which committee we are referring to. Mr Hargreaves made the comparison between my press release and Ms Gallagher’s press release. Ms Gallagher’s press release is headed up “New Auditor-General for ACT”. Any reasonable reading of that means that there is a new Auditor-General for the ACT—not that it is proposed or not that it might happen, but that there will be. If you read the header on my press release it says “Gallagher to be examined”. It uses the future tense: “She will be examined”, so there is no decision made in that. If you do not understand the English language, go back to school. It reads “Gallagher to be examined for improper conduct”.
Now, where do I get improper conduct from? The motion talks about improper interference with the free exercise of an Assembly committee. Where do I get improper interference with the free exercise of an Assembly committee? I get it from the letter written by the chair on behalf of the public accounts committee where it says in paragraph (a):
… the majority of the Committee was of the view that the matter raised by Mr Smyth had caused interference with its work …
And paragraph (b):
… if regarded as a precedent and repeated, to cause substantial interference with the scrutiny and oversight role parliamentary committees have on behalf of the Assembly with regard to the process of statutory appointments.
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