Page 10 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 14 February 2012
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Mr Smyth: On that basis, I would ask you—
MR SPEAKER: I am not going to sit here and go through the motion line by line, but I think that through, for example, the direction for the Speaker to undertake an audit there are questions being raised there. I am going to allow the comment to stand, but I will keep a close eye on it. I accept the tenor of where you are going; I do not think Ms Hunter’s remarks crossed that line. Mr Hargreaves, on the point of order.
Mr Hargreaves: I can assist. I suggest that the member look at paragraph 6(a), in particular the second phrase in that clause.
MR SPEAKER: Thank you. Ms Hunter, you have the floor to continue.
MS HUNTER: Thank you, Mr Speaker. That is what the heart of the matter is here. This is what the motion is going to today in asking the Leader of the Opposition to come into the chamber to answer a series of questions about staffing matters in relation to the issue that has been raised. The last part of it directs the Speaker to set up an independent workplace audit to be assured that the ACT taxpayers’ money that is given to a member of this place to employ staff to do work in this place is being used for that purpose.
It is important that we get to the heart of it. This is about the integrity of this Assembly. In my time here, and I believe for many years, we have not had these sorts of allegations raised. In his speech Mr Seselja spoke about the fact that there could be many staff members in this place who had not lodged their time sheets in a timely manner. That may well happen from time to time. But this is an extraordinary case. We are talking about a series of letters that were sent to the Leader of the Opposition over years, asking the Leader of the Opposition to abide by the rules.
As employers in this place we all sign a contract with our employees; part of that is that documentation is kept that shows that staff are entitled to the pay they receive. We all signed those sheets to be assured that the right thing has happened. This motion is very much about saying, “We need to understand that that was properly carried out.” And it is also about saying that the money that was allocated, the pay that was received by a staff member, was paid to that person because they performed duties within this place. It is not necessarily physically within this place. Mr Seselja talks about staff going outside. Of course our staff go outside to community events. There is a range of duties that they perform. But this is about whether taxpayers’ dollars were paying the salary of someone who was not doing the work of this place, was not performing duties to do with Mr Seselja’s duties in this place. We need to be assured that that has not been the case.
There have been a series of allegations raised that we need to get to the bottom of. It is about the integrity of the Assembly. If it turns out that there has not been any wrongdoing then we move on. But at this point there are a series of questions, quite serious questions, that need to be answered.
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