Page 4361 - Week 10 - Thursday, 22 September 2011
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I can understand you would be upset at being called to account. It is upsetting when you get something wrong and you are held to account, but that does not make what I have said wrong. In fact, what I have said is entirely correct: “Gallagher to be examined for improper conduct”. Again, I do not understand which mental political giant upstairs thought this one out and thought that, by bringing this back on the agenda, it was going to help the Chief Minister in some way. But, boy, you guys need to look at your tactics. If it came out of Mr Barr’s office, Ms Gallagher, I would be really worried.
We then had Mr Corbell saying, “Mr Smyth is wrong and he knows he’s wrong.” Mr Corbell would know because Mr Corbell has got form. Mr Corbell has got the worst record of any minister in this place for censure. Mr Corbell was found in contempt of the Assembly after the estimates committee in the health debate when there was a cheat sheet issued to staff so that they could avoid the questions of the opposition.
There was a motion passed that the Assembly expressed its grave concern at the Minister for Health being found in contempt of the Assembly. Then, of course, there was “The Assembly censures Mr Corbell for his refusal to negotiate with the owners of the site at the corner of Nettlefold Street and Coulter Drive as directed by the Assembly.” My personal favourite—and he knows about wilful misleading—is this: “The Assembly censures the Minister for Health and the Minister for Planning, Mr Corbell, for persistently and wilfully misleading the Assembly on a number of issues.” Mr Corbell understands this because he did it all the time and was found and held to account by the Assembly on various occasions. Being chastised by a man with that record really does not hold much weight, as far as I am concerned.
It is interesting because at least Mr Corbell did what Mr Barr should have done, and I see a pattern here. We have got a left colleague standing up for the left Chief Minister and we have got a right colleague not even tabling a document, not quoting a word, a phrase, a sentence, or a paragraph. He did not even quote the header from my press release. Perhaps it is a left-right split over there; I do not know. Mr Corbell said: “It was misleading. He knew it to be false.” I am not sure which bit is false—“Gallagher to be examined for improper conduct”. “To be examined” is future tense. He said I had pre-decided that there was interference. The interference, the bit he quotes from, was actually the decision of the public accounts committee. I will quote from what the public accounts committee said. It is a letter on Assembly letterhead; it has got “Legislative Assembly for the Australian Capital Territory—Standing Committee on Public Accounts”. The committee chair, Ms Le Couteur, wrote and said—and I will read it again:
… the majority of the Committee was of the view that the matter raised by Mr Smyth had caused interference with its work …
In the next paragraph it says:
… 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 …
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