Page 5517 - Week 13 - Thursday, 17 November 2011
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opportunity, but the Labor Party member on the committee and the Greens member on the committee rejected what had been found by PAC. I gave that a lot of weight because it was PAC that was actually making the decision, it was PAC that was dealing with the undue influence and it was PAC that was dealing with the inappropriate pressure.
The other thing that I gave particular weight to was the meeting between Ms Gallagher and Ms Le Couteur, and I gave weight to the evidence of the two. It is interesting to read the two accounts of that meeting. Ms Le Couteur’s claim I think is critical to what was going on here. We had already had it inappropriately publicised, we had already had inappropriate media commentary and then we had the Chief Minister going to the chair of the committee and saying—and this is what Ms Le Couteur says happened:
My memory is that Ms Gallagher also stated that Dr Cooper was the Government’s nominee and that she (Dr Cooper) would be the new Auditor-General.
How is that for a rubber-stamp process—that Ms Gallagher decided this was going to happen? She went and laid down the law. She said: “Here it is. My nominee’s out there, she’s already being called the Auditor-General in the media, she is the government’s nominee and she will be the Auditor-General. Like it or lump it.” That was the message that was given, and in fact Ms Gallagher in her evidence does not actually address this point. So we have differing accounts of the same meeting. Ms Gallagher says:
… I spoke to the Chair to reassure her and the PAC that no disrespect was intended by the press release.
That is Ms Gallagher’s version of events. She does not actually address that claim. In fact, if we had had the opportunity to call them as witnesses, we of course could have asked Ms Gallagher about that claim by Ms Le Couteur. And we could have asked Ms Le Couteur about her claim. But given the evidence we had, given all of what had gone before, given the pattern of behaviour by the Chief Minister on this issue, when Ms Le Couteur says that Ms Gallagher went into her office and said, “She is the nominee; she will be the new Auditor-General,” I believe Ms Le Couteur. I believe Ms Le Couteur when she says it. There was nothing presented to the committee that would cause us to not believe Ms Le Couteur when she says that. And if you believe Ms Le Couteur then you have to find that Ms Gallagher was seeking to pressure her inappropriately.
What was the intent of Ms Gallagher going into that meeting and saying: “Here’s the nominee. She’s the nominee. She will be the new Auditor-General”? Why would Ms Le Couteur make that up? I do not believe she did. I believe she is telling the truth, which leads us to the question: why would Ms Gallagher behave in that way? Why would she publicise it when it has not been publicised in the past? I believe this was a concerted effort by the Chief Minister to put pressure on the public accounts committee. I believe that concerted effort was highly inappropriate. I believe it was contemptuous of that statutory process and of that committee. It interfered with their ability to properly do their job.
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