Page 1062 - Week 04 - Thursday, 21 May 2020
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why you have a chair’s draft that is presented to the committee, to go through those deliberations—in this case for weeks on end. Otherwise the chair would just write it and present it. That is not the way it works. You have to start with something to discuss, and not everyone is going to agree. That is the way it works on just about every committee of which I have been a member—in fact, not “just about” but on every committee. You start with a chair’s draft, and everyone makes suggestions and amendments.
It is quite clear that one member of the committee was against this from the start. They were against the inquiry as a whole. They were against the Auditor-General’s findings. They made that quite clear from the outset. When they dissented from the vast majority of the report, this was no surprise to anyone because it was quite clear right from the start. Of course, I am talking about Ms Cody, who is a paid-up member of and advocate for the CFMMEU. At times, I felt her comments were grubby and sordid. Ms Cheyne, who I felt was approaching this deliberation process with an open mind and a genuine intent to improve, ended up demonstrating her duplicity, her dissimulation and her deception at the last minute. It seemed as though she was genuinely interested in—
Ms Cheyne: Mr Assistant Speaker—
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Mr Pettersson): Ms Lawder, could you resume your seat?
Ms Cheyne: A point of order. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition has made a series of imputations which are unparliamentary. I ask her to withdraw them all.
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Thank you, Ms Cheyne. Ms Lawder, I ask you to withdraw.
MS LAWDER: Which part?
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Duplicity.
MS LAWDER: Duplicity? I had such alliteration there. Okay, I will withdraw the word “duplicity”.
Ms Cheyne: And “grubby”.
Ms Cody: And “grubby”.
Ms Cheyne: And “sordid”.
MS LAWDER: I return to—
Ms Cody: A point of order.
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER: A point of order, Ms Cody.
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