Page 1088 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 6 May 2014
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Mr Rattenbury was a Speaker in this place and Mr Rattenbury understands that you cannot actually come into this place and not tell the truth. That is called misleading the Assembly. By Mr Rattenbury’s statement that the Chief Minister’s is the truest version, I think Mr Rattenbury has made the case for himself that indeed the minister has misled at some stage, and that is the point.
I think it is important that some action be taken on the minister. From my point of view, that is a threshold, coming in here with three different versions of a story that are all shown not to be true and then having the Chief Minister essentially say that there is another version. I think that is a threshold to say that this minister is no longer fit to do his job. I will therefore move an amendment shortly to my motion, an amendment that essentially is a censure of Mr Corbell.
As I said, I am disappointed that this is not going to meet the threshold for a vote of no confidence, which it deserves, because not telling the truth, misleading this place, is, I think, the highest test for a minister. But I accept that the consequence of that is for this minister to lose his job. I believe that that is the appropriate response, but what I will do now is seek leave to move an amendment to my own motion that the minister be censured for misleading the Assembly.
Leave granted.
MR HANSON: I move an amendment that Mr Corbell be censured for misleading this Assembly in the following terms:
Omit the words “expresses its want of confidence in” and substitute “censures”.
MADAM SPEAKER: What you are proposing to do, Mr Hanson, is omit the words “expresses its want of confidence in” and substitute “censures”?
MR HANSON: Yes, and that is being circulated, Madam Speaker.
MADAM SPEAKER: The question is that Mr Hanson’s amendment, by leave, be agreed to. It has not been circulated as yet. I think, given the seriousness of the matter, do you want to say something while we are waiting for it to be circulated, Mr Barr?
MR BARR (Molonglo—Deputy Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development, Minister for Sport and Recreation, Minister for Tourism and Events and Minister for Community Services) (3.40): Thank you, Madam Speaker. This is a fairly extraordinary turn of events. In the middle of seeking to move a no-confidence motion the Leader of the Opposition decides to downgrade his motion. What next? If he is not successful in achieving a censure motion, will he then change the words again to “grave concern”, to “slap over the wrist”? Are we going to spend the rest of this afternoon gradually changing words to ensure that the Leader of the Opposition feels that he gets something out of wasting the Assembly’s time for what is now more than an hour.
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