Page 23 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 14 February 2012
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MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Doszpot, will you remain silent while Mr Hargreaves is speaking to the amendments?
MR HARGREAVES: Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. The facts to which I refer are those contained within the freedom of information documents on the Legislative Assembly website. I suspect that only the Leader of the Opposition’s office has actually bothered to read them, otherwise they would not make such silly assertions that this stuff is based on rumour. Those documents, in fact, are quite clear. Those documents talk about how the documents were 22 months in coming forward. Those documents reveal that only one office had at one point in time eight out of 10 staff in breach of these administrative arrangements. Those documents also reveal that only one office was the subject of repeated exhortations from the Clerk’s office to fix the matter up—repeated—and they got stronger and stronger each time.
You would have to be either blind or stupid not to understand the message that the Clerk was giving. He talks about being subject to embarrassment. That is what we are seeing here today. When people are embarrassed, they thrash around trying to divert attention. The suggestion that this is a slur on the Speaker’s office and the Clerk’s office has got to be an all-time low in this place. I reject that absolutely unequivocally.
Mr Smyth talked about the president of the Labor Party, and so did Mr Hanson. Let me put this to you, Madam Deputy Speaker: I think it was Mr Hanson who said he occasionally looks across the chamber to the benches over here and he sees Mr Purtill. Let me say to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, I, too, have looked across the chamber at the benches over there and I have rarely seen Tio Faulkner sitting there, because he is too busy at 221 London Circuit.
The issue is not whether somebody can in their own time be the president of a political party. The issue is whether they spend predominantly their time off site actually discharging one of those roles which is not that for which they are being paid by this Legislative Assembly. That is the issue. So the comparison with other people is quite inappropriate.
This question has to be answered: is Mr Faulkner being paid as the president of the Canberra Liberals or is he being paid as the director of electorate services in the Leader of the Opposition’s office? Mr Hanson and Mr Smyth both perpetrated the furphy of saying he works in the office of the Leader of the Opposition. Well, he does not. He works on level 5 at 221 London Circuit. That was also admitted by Mr Hanson when he tried to tell us about the accommodation arrangements there. You cannot have it both ways. He is not that schizophrenic. Quite clearly he cannot be in two places at once.
I suggest to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that we need an independent person to go and check that out. If it is fine then let it be known that it is fine. Let us dispel that. Those opposite did not mind quoting Mr De Landelles and Ms Porter. I remind those members that there was a change in the legislation which said that that was not possible. A member cannot employ a close family member. It was not me that raised
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