Page 28 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 14 February 2012
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MR HARGREAVES (Brindabella) (11.34): In closing the debate, Madam Deputy Speaker, the motion is in three parts. The first part deals with matters of grave concern to the chamber. You will see that paragraph (1) is quite specific. It is about a failure to adhere to the members’ code of conduct and the enterprise agreement under the LA(MS) Act—section B6, record keeping, clauses B6.1 and B6.2. That stems out of those freedom of information documents.
Contained in those documents also are the repeated exhortations from the Clerk and the Deputy Clerk. It is unheard of in my time that such a thing would have to happen. Usually there is a good relationship between these offices and the Clerk’s office where things can be fixed up if they are slightly off the rails. This is not slightly off the rails, Madam Deputy Speaker; this is a train wreck.
There seems to be a systemic cultural issue. That is why we are expressing concern that the Liberals have had to repay 10,000 bucks worth of grants and that they have had to be counselled over use of Assembly resources for party and political purposes. Now there is a suggestion that the president of the Liberal Party is being paid out of Assembly appropriations to perform a job as president of the Canberra Liberals. Those people opposite made a lot of noise about comparing the president to Mr Purtill. I remind those opposite, firstly, that Mr Purtill attends this precinct. He signs his time sheets. They are not and have never been in question. He provides services, quite clearly, as adviser to a minister and he has provided those services to the opposition as well. None of the above can be applied to Mr Faulkner—none of them.
The second part directs the Leader of the Opposition to provide a written statement on a whole range of questions from the freedom of information documents. Contained in there, of course, is a revelation that, as Ms Hunter said, there is not a systemic issue in this place. There is no suggestion, for example, that there is an issue in Mr Smyth’s office, in Ms Le Couteur’s office or in Dr Bourke’s office. There is no suggestion about that at all.
These freedom of information documents and the annual report itself refer to one specific office. That one specific office brings this parliament into disrepute. The questions that we have put need answering. Out of those questions will come other questions, hence the third part of the motion. We believe that the Speaker should commission an independent workplace audit of staffing arrangements and look into whether or not inappropriate payments were made in the office of the Leader of the Opposition. The amendment talked about the Seventh Assembly. In fact, these transgressions go back to the Sixth Assembly. In fact, some of them go back to 2008.
We need to make sure that it is not about “he said, she said” because you cannot prove this and you cannot prove that. ICT information around when you log on and when you log off and the building swipe cards do not lie. The television cameras of the precinct do not lie. I came into this office on the weekend to do a bit of work and go to the Multicultural Festival, which was a blast. So my access to this building, this precinct, is recorded. Let that information be known to the independent auditor.
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