Page 3085 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 14 August 2012
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agreed with quite a number of the recommendations in this report, and they were proposed by Mr Smyth and Mr Coe. And I do not have a problem. But if you put them inside a committee room when all of these witnesses and the ministers are popping up, the minute Mr Seselja or Mr Hanson walk in that door they go from being considered parliamentarians to growling lapdogs, eager to out-bite somebody to seek their leader’s approval, to see how many bite marks they can leave on the officials and how many claw marks they can leave on the ministers. That is what they do.
The inconsistency is absolutely marked. The sad part about it is that Mr Smyth is better than that. Mr Coe is not better than that but Mr Smyth is better than that. In fact Mr Coe has the ignominy in this place of delivering one of the most treacherous pieces of abuse of privacy that I have ever struck in this place. He will go down in the annals of history for this. He has to sit and live with it because people remember how long it takes. He is either a very slow reader in that it takes him 18 months to read something or he is a treacherous piece of work. I suspect that he is a treacherous piece of work.
What we are seeing now is that, of course, he has to persist and do what his leader says.
Mr Smyth: Madam Deputy Speaker, I would bring relevance to your attention.
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr Smyth.
MR HARGREAVES: Madam Deputy Speaker, on the point of order, the relevance in fact goes to their behaviour in the committee hearings and in the committee deliberative meetings. I will not reveal what was actually said in those meetings, quite clearly. But I can reveal the demeanour—
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Hargreaves, resume your seat for two seconds.
MR HARGREAVES: Clock, please.
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Stop the clock. Yes, I do understand the point you are trying to make but could you stick to the estimates proceedings and the report itself, thank you very much.
MR HARGREAVES: Okay, thanks very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. I had a bit of a look at this dissenting report and I have to say that I think I preferred their policy document on corrections, when Mr Hanson was bellyaching about it. That policy document had “please turn over” on both sides of it. It did not have anything to do with it, and this particular dissenting report, Madam Deputy Speaker—
Mrs Dunne: Relevance, Madam Deputy Speaker. A point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker.
MR HARGREAVES: This dissenting report—
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