Page 5600 - Week 13 - Thursday, 17 November 2011
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Mr Hargreaves wanted to participate. He raised concerns, as did I. It is easy to say, “With the evidence we’ve got, we couldn’t find anything.” Perhaps you should look a little bit further than the end of your nose. That is the problem with this. We had serious issues raised, and we had a half-hearted attempt by the committee to go about finding out what had actually happened.
Unfortunately for Ms Le Couteur, the downside of this is that Ms Le Couteur has been hung out to dry by two members of the committee, including Ms Bresnan, her own Greens colleague, because Ms Le Couteur raised serious concerns. In paragraph 5.9, the committee says:
… there is no evidence before it that suggests that that action was an attempt to improperly influence the Standing Committee …
The committee said this in response to a question by you, Mr Speaker. You said, “Have you been interfered with?” They said, “Yes, we were.” So the committee did not look very hard at all. Even in the evidence they had, the committee said, on the first count, yes, there had been interference. They said, “We couldn’t determine, because of the nature of the committee, how strong that interference had been.”
But on the second count there was strong interference and the potential for strong interference into the future. The committee addressed that, but do not acknowledge it in the report. It is a shame that they try and say in paragraph 5.9 that there was no evidence, because there was plenty of evidence if you cared to look in the documents that you had, in the comments that people made to you and indeed in the willingness of people to participate in the hearing. That was never explored. That is a shame.
That is why we have this unresolved issue of the conflict between Ms Le Couteur and the Chief Minister. It is a failure of the leadership of the chair of the committee. She can say what she wants. She can say, “I’m a good committee chair.” But my mum always used to say that self-praise is no recommendation. There is a fundamental question as to why we did not get to the bottom of the nub of the matter where Ms Le Couteur says:
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.
She did not say she would like to be; she said “would be”. It is improper to say to the chair of a committee, “You will make my nominee the new Auditor-General.”
It is interesting that Ms Gallagher does not mention that in her 60-page submission. There are a couple of paragraphs—I think it is paragraphs 39 and 46—where she looks at that meeting. It mentions the apology—“I didn’t want to offend anybody”—but she does not go to the nub of this. When the Chief Minister speaks—I hope she speaks, though she failed to answer this question in question time; she sidestepped it, as she does so often—I hope she does. For those who have not read the Chief Minister’s submission, paragraph 39 says:
When aware of the Chair’s concerns, I spoke with her directly and apologised. In addition, I responded in writing to the PAC Chair (on 3 June 2011) that no
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