Page 2145 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 6 June 2018
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again—no, that is tautology. I repeat: through inadvertence—I do not believe that anyone set out to mislead the Assembly; I do not believe that anyone set out to mislead the Governor-General—both this Assembly and the Governor-General were misled. It is incumbent upon us as legislators that, when we become aware that the Assembly has been misled, we come in and correct the record.
It should be incumbent upon us, when we realise that we have misled the Governor-General, that we correct the record. We cannot take anything back. We cannot undo any of this. I am not making any proposition in that regard. I am simply calling for us to do what is required under the standing orders, what is required by form and practice. We all know that the Assembly was misled, and the record should be corrected.
However, if the record is not corrected by the person who misled the Assembly, we have a problem. It is possibly just stubbornness. There are some people who do not like to admit that they have made mistakes. We all make mistakes. That is why we have the form that we do that allows us to come in and correct the record if we have made a mistake, if we have misled the Assembly.
There have been plenty of opportunities for the Chief Minister to come in and correct the record. But he has not done so. That is why we need to have this motion today.
Madam Speaker, this motion is simple, uncomplicated and straightforward. It calls for a formal recognition that the Assembly was misled. We all understand that it was inadvertent. There is no sanction against anyone who has misled. There certainly is no criticism of the Chief Minister. He was working on the information that he had at the time. But it is incumbent upon us, when we realise that the information we were working on at the time was wrong, to correct the record.
The thing that really occupies my mind about this is that we have also misled the Governor-General. It is incumbent upon the Chief Minister, on behalf of the Assembly, to apologise to the Governor-General for that inadvertent mislead. Put it to bed, once and for all. We were all acting on information that was imprecise and incomplete. We need to face up to the fact that we were doing this and correct the record. I commend the motion, as simple as it is, calling on the Chief Minister to correct the record and to apologise to the Governor-General.
MR BARR (Kurrajong—Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development and Minister for Tourism and Major Events) (6.08): The government will not be supporting Mrs Dunne’s motion today. I move the following amendment:
Omit all words after (1), substitute:
“(1) notes:
(a) the High Court of Australia, acting as the Court of Disputed Returns, ruled on 8 May 2018 that Ms Katy Gallagher was ineligible to stand as a Senate candidate for the 2016 Federal election, after Ms Gallagher referred herself to the Court for consideration of her eligibility; and
(b) following a resolution of the Legislative Assembly of 30 November 2017, the Administration and Procedure Committee report tabled on 15 February 2018 found that the ACT Legislative Assembly has one of the
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