Mr STIRLING - 2000-05-18
This morning on radio you told Territorians you did not know what was in the documents you tabled yesterday, that you hadn’t read them despite having signed one of them in the first place, and despite having had 8 days to get them together. You said: ‘I can’t even remember what I signed off on, frankly, and I have not even read them, Fred. You know, to be perfectly honest, I told my people to gather them up. I have not read each one in detail’.
Chief Minister, you are either lazy and incompetent or very loose with the truth, and I ask you to confirm that. Either way you are not fit for the job, but which category is it?
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, I wish we could rip our shirts off and be supermen like the member over there. I have not even been able to ascertain the basis of the reference for Clare Martin’s comments. I am trying to do that ...
Mr Stirling: It did not worry you coming in here and using it.
Mr BURKE: Because I trust my staff. I give an undertaking. I have now had time - because I have had one free period as one question was not asked of me - to find out the basis for it, and I can give an undertaking that I will table it as soon as I get a copy that is clean.
What was the question? Why I did not read the documents? The reality is that I can’t read everything that comes across my desk. Many of these documents go back as far as 1991. In 1991, I had nothing to do with events that occurred in the appointment of many of those judges.
I told my staff to gather up all of those determinations. I asked the question of my legal advisers whether it was appropriate to withhold or table these. I was given advice that there was no reason not to table them. Apart from the fact that it was an invasion of personal privacy, there was no reason why this government could not table them, and for that reason I said to gather them up and table them. I did not read them all in detail because, I am sorry, this Chief Minister has nothing to hide. You can build all the little scenarios you like, but I can tell you that, if I had anything to hide, I would have been going through them word by word - and I wasn’t.
Chief Minister, you are either lazy and incompetent or very loose with the truth, and I ask you to confirm that. Either way you are not fit for the job, but which category is it?
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, I wish we could rip our shirts off and be supermen like the member over there. I have not even been able to ascertain the basis of the reference for Clare Martin’s comments. I am trying to do that ...
Mr Stirling: It did not worry you coming in here and using it.
Mr BURKE: Because I trust my staff. I give an undertaking. I have now had time - because I have had one free period as one question was not asked of me - to find out the basis for it, and I can give an undertaking that I will table it as soon as I get a copy that is clean.
What was the question? Why I did not read the documents? The reality is that I can’t read everything that comes across my desk. Many of these documents go back as far as 1991. In 1991, I had nothing to do with events that occurred in the appointment of many of those judges.
I told my staff to gather up all of those determinations. I asked the question of my legal advisers whether it was appropriate to withhold or table these. I was given advice that there was no reason not to table them. Apart from the fact that it was an invasion of personal privacy, there was no reason why this government could not table them, and for that reason I said to gather them up and table them. I did not read them all in detail because, I am sorry, this Chief Minister has nothing to hide. You can build all the little scenarios you like, but I can tell you that, if I had anything to hide, I would have been going through them word by word - and I wasn’t.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016