Mrs HICKEY - 1998-04-22
This morning, he referred to legal advice he has obtained, using taxpayers' funds, about the operation of the Commonwealth Electoral Act in relation to replacing Labor's Senator. Will he provide members and the media with copies of all the advices he has obtained?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, the Deputy Chief Minister, the Leader of Government Business and I met in my office with Dr Gavan Griffith QC this morning. He conveyed his advice to us. He is later to furnish me with a written opinion. I have no difficulty with making that publicly available. I have since confirmed that a letter was delivered to the office of the Leader of the Opposition at 9.40 am, and make no criticism about that. We are all very busy as we prepare to come into the Chamber for a sitting. However, I assume that the Leader of the Opposition has received that letter by now. If not, I can provide the Leader of the Opposition with a copy ...
Mr Bailey: That is the sort of stunt you pull.
Mr STONE: It is not a stunt.
Mr Bailey: I am talking about your colleague,
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who sticks things under people's doors after everyone has gone home.
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Mr STONE: I have had it confirmed to me that an officer from my office went to the lady who sits at the front counter and said: 'This is a letter from the Chief Minister for the Leader of the Opposition'. I am sorry she has not had an opportunity to read it. It is only a 2-page letter. May I, as a matter of courtesy, provide also the letter that I have written to the federal Leader of the Opposition, Kim Beazley, urging on him, as a matter of urgency, that Gareth Evans QC be brought into this as quickly as possible and indicating that Dr Gavan Griffith QC is available to speak with him by telephone, to enable us to resolve this nonsense once and for all.
Mr Bailey: So you can threaten to delay ...
Mr STONE: No. I pick up the interjection. It is not about threatened delays, but about complying with the law. I do not know whether the member for Wanguri ...
Mr Bailey: On that basis, why not at the June sittings?
Mr STONE: I take that as an admission that you reckon you are wrong.
Mr Bailey: No. You suggested August. If it is a matter of law, if it has to be done at a time when the Assembly is sitting, we have the June sittings.
Madam SPEAKER: Order! Member for Wanguri.
Mr STONE: We want to see this situation resolved. We want to see Territorians fully represented in the Senate. I will not cop the Leader of the Opposition saying, on radio or anywhere else, that this is all about trying to circumvent a so-called democratic process when, in fact, what the Labor Party is urging on the government is that we should break the law. We are not prepared to break the law for the ALP or for anybody else.
Mr Bailey: He went on radio saying he would hand-pick a Labor Senator. That is what this is all about.
Madam SPEAKER: Order! Member for Wanguri.
Mr STONE: May I tell the member for Wanguri that we have advice also that says we are able to do exactly that.
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Mr STONE: If the Leader of the Opposition reads the letter that I have sent to her, she will find that I have pointed out that we want to act on her nominee. I heard her say this morning that she has to have regard for those members of her party who live in the bush. I understand that this is being done by means of a plebiscite.
Mrs Hickey: Absolutely, a democratic ...
Mr STONE: When the Leader of the Opposition says 'absolutely', that is not how the ALP started out to do it. It started off with a preselection panel which was then abandoned.
Ms Martin: No, we did not.
Mr STONE: Yes, you did. It is a matter of public record. The ALP state secretary went on radio and said that was what he was doing. Then your candidates ...
Mr Bailey: It is something you do not know about.
Mr STONE: We know a great deal, actually, because the phone calls have not stopped from the Labor Party, I can tell you.
Mrs Hickey: Come on, name them! Tell us.
Mr STONE: You lot leak like a sieve. It is remarkable. I suppose, when all else fails, you always have those sorts of things to rely on.
I repeat that a preselection panel was in place, but the process was abandoned.
Mrs Hickey: We did not. That is absolutely untrue.
Mr STONE: You confirmed that. It has been confirmed on several occasions. I will not go through it chapter and verse. Members of the press gallery are aware of the farcical carryings-on. The Leader of the Opposition said this morning on radio that she had bush members. No members opposite contradicted what I said yesterday in the parliament - that the ALP has fewer than 200 members. I said it 3 times. All of them just sat there, looking ...
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Mr Bailey: If we picked up every lie that you told in here, we would be ruled out of order every 3 minutes.
Mr STONE: I suggest to the Leader of the Opposition that even her members in the bush have access to fax machines. People are able even to vote by fax machine these days.
Mr Toyne: Do you want to come in and run it for us?
Mr STONE: You laugh about it. What this has demonstrated to Territorians is that a party that cannot even run a preselection process could not aspire to run the Territory. It is so fundamental simply to get the party's members together to decide whether it will have Dennis Bree or Trish Crossin or somebody else ...
Mr Bailey: Seventeen males and not a female on your side.
Madam SPEAKER: Order! Member for Wanguri.
Mr STONE: I take that interjection ...
Madam SPEAKER: Order! If we had not had so many interjections, this answer might have been completed by now.
Mr STONE: I take that interjection to mean that the member for Wanguri is advising the public that Labor will preselect a woman. That narrows the field down.
While I am on my feet, I shall refer to the graph provided by the member for Nhulunbuy. It is very cute - a computer-generated trend-line. What a fraud! If he had been really honest, he would have drawn to the attention of the Assembly that, in fact, when mandatory sentencing commenced, crime started to fall away and the only time it peaked again was during the appeal period. An examination of the peaks and the troughs demonstrates that mandatory sentencing works. His very cute graph, with a computer-generated trend-line which has no regard to the starting point of mandatory sentencing, is absolutely fraudulent. It is typical of everything the Labor Party does.
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ANSWER
Madam Speaker, the Deputy Chief Minister, the Leader of Government Business and I met in my office with Dr Gavan Griffith QC this morning. He conveyed his advice to us. He is later to furnish me with a written opinion. I have no difficulty with making that publicly available. I have since confirmed that a letter was delivered to the office of the Leader of the Opposition at 9.40 am, and make no criticism about that. We are all very busy as we prepare to come into the Chamber for a sitting. However, I assume that the Leader of the Opposition has received that letter by now. If not, I can provide the Leader of the Opposition with a copy ...
Mr Bailey: That is the sort of stunt you pull.
Mr STONE: It is not a stunt.
Mr Bailey: I am talking about your colleague,
Page 190
who sticks things under people's doors after everyone has gone home.
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Mr STONE: I have had it confirmed to me that an officer from my office went to the lady who sits at the front counter and said: 'This is a letter from the Chief Minister for the Leader of the Opposition'. I am sorry she has not had an opportunity to read it. It is only a 2-page letter. May I, as a matter of courtesy, provide also the letter that I have written to the federal Leader of the Opposition, Kim Beazley, urging on him, as a matter of urgency, that Gareth Evans QC be brought into this as quickly as possible and indicating that Dr Gavan Griffith QC is available to speak with him by telephone, to enable us to resolve this nonsense once and for all.
Mr Bailey: So you can threaten to delay ...
Mr STONE: No. I pick up the interjection. It is not about threatened delays, but about complying with the law. I do not know whether the member for Wanguri ...
Mr Bailey: On that basis, why not at the June sittings?
Mr STONE: I take that as an admission that you reckon you are wrong.
Mr Bailey: No. You suggested August. If it is a matter of law, if it has to be done at a time when the Assembly is sitting, we have the June sittings.
Madam SPEAKER: Order! Member for Wanguri.
Mr STONE: We want to see this situation resolved. We want to see Territorians fully represented in the Senate. I will not cop the Leader of the Opposition saying, on radio or anywhere else, that this is all about trying to circumvent a so-called democratic process when, in fact, what the Labor Party is urging on the government is that we should break the law. We are not prepared to break the law for the ALP or for anybody else.
Mr Bailey: He went on radio saying he would hand-pick a Labor Senator. That is what this is all about.
Madam SPEAKER: Order! Member for Wanguri.
Mr STONE: May I tell the member for Wanguri that we have advice also that says we are able to do exactly that.
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Mr STONE: If the Leader of the Opposition reads the letter that I have sent to her, she will find that I have pointed out that we want to act on her nominee. I heard her say this morning that she has to have regard for those members of her party who live in the bush. I understand that this is being done by means of a plebiscite.
Mrs Hickey: Absolutely, a democratic ...
Mr STONE: When the Leader of the Opposition says 'absolutely', that is not how the ALP started out to do it. It started off with a preselection panel which was then abandoned.
Ms Martin: No, we did not.
Mr STONE: Yes, you did. It is a matter of public record. The ALP state secretary went on radio and said that was what he was doing. Then your candidates ...
Mr Bailey: It is something you do not know about.
Mr STONE: We know a great deal, actually, because the phone calls have not stopped from the Labor Party, I can tell you.
Mrs Hickey: Come on, name them! Tell us.
Mr STONE: You lot leak like a sieve. It is remarkable. I suppose, when all else fails, you always have those sorts of things to rely on.
I repeat that a preselection panel was in place, but the process was abandoned.
Mrs Hickey: We did not. That is absolutely untrue.
Mr STONE: You confirmed that. It has been confirmed on several occasions. I will not go through it chapter and verse. Members of the press gallery are aware of the farcical carryings-on. The Leader of the Opposition said this morning on radio that she had bush members. No members opposite contradicted what I said yesterday in the parliament - that the ALP has fewer than 200 members. I said it 3 times. All of them just sat there, looking ...
Page 191
Mr Bailey: If we picked up every lie that you told in here, we would be ruled out of order every 3 minutes.
Mr STONE: I suggest to the Leader of the Opposition that even her members in the bush have access to fax machines. People are able even to vote by fax machine these days.
Mr Toyne: Do you want to come in and run it for us?
Mr STONE: You laugh about it. What this has demonstrated to Territorians is that a party that cannot even run a preselection process could not aspire to run the Territory. It is so fundamental simply to get the party's members together to decide whether it will have Dennis Bree or Trish Crossin or somebody else ...
Mr Bailey: Seventeen males and not a female on your side.
Madam SPEAKER: Order! Member for Wanguri.
Mr STONE: I take that interjection ...
Madam SPEAKER: Order! If we had not had so many interjections, this answer might have been completed by now.
Mr STONE: I take that interjection to mean that the member for Wanguri is advising the public that Labor will preselect a woman. That narrows the field down.
While I am on my feet, I shall refer to the graph provided by the member for Nhulunbuy. It is very cute - a computer-generated trend-line. What a fraud! If he had been really honest, he would have drawn to the attention of the Assembly that, in fact, when mandatory sentencing commenced, crime started to fall away and the only time it peaked again was during the appeal period. An examination of the peaks and the troughs demonstrates that mandatory sentencing works. His very cute graph, with a computer-generated trend-line which has no regard to the starting point of mandatory sentencing, is absolutely fraudulent. It is typical of everything the Labor Party does.
Page 192
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016