Page 1318 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 11 April 2018
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this place and showing a disregard for grammar that would make my schoolteacher mother blush. But none of those things is contempt.
The important part of the letter I would like to draw members’ attention to is the second last paragraph. In that paragraph residents are encouraged to make negative submissions to the PAC inquiry via the haveyoursay.net.au website. Neither Miss C Burch nor Ms Lee is a member of the public accounts committee. However, Mr Coe is a member of PAC and, as we have already established, it would seem that Mr Coe is the operator of the haveyoursay.net.au website.
When I saw that, it triggered a memory. I went for a dig into the archives, and let me take a moment to compliment the Clerk and all his staff for an easy to navigate and comprehensive website. What I found was a report of a privileges committee dated 19 March 2004. In that case it was found that the chair of the Standing Committee on Planning and Environment was in contempt of the Assembly because of interference with submissions. Whilst I will not quote from the report at length, its first finding was:
The committee is of the view that the distribution of the leaflet was “likely to amount to an improper interference with the free exercise by … a committee of its authority or functions”; that this interference was serious; and that there was a clear intent shown by the Chair, Mrs Dunne, through the wording of the leaflet, to create this interference by advocating one particular view on the question under inquiry.
For members wishing to learn more about that matter, it is filed under “Select Committee on Privileges 3” from the Fifth Assembly or, if she is in a kindly mood, they might like to ask Mrs Dunne.
What I am suggesting here is that, via conspiracy, Mr Coe, Ms Lee and Miss C Burch may have constructed a circumstance similar to that found in contempt in 2004. For the benefit of the Assembly, I seek leave to table one final document: a printout of the web page that the letter suggests residents use to submit to the inquiry.
Leave granted.
MS CODY: I present the following paper:
Inquiry into the methodology for determining rates and land tax for apartments—
Copy of Have Your Say—An initiative of the Canberra Liberals, posted on 7 March 2018.
Members will notice that the page initially provides some commentary, then correctly quotes from the ACT Legislative Assembly’s website about the method of making submissions. It then suggests that submissions can also be made via a web form. From my understanding, that information is captured by the Liberal Party and, other than an assertion that it will be passed directly on to the committee, we cannot be sure that submissions were passed on accurately or at all.
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