Mr ELFERINK - 2000-11-30
I listened with interest to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition’s question where he made reference to the support of the business community in the Northern Territory. Yesterday, we had a graph tabled by the Leader of the Opposition. I am curious to hear what the Treasurer has to say now that he has had time to review that document.
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, in the course of answering the question I draw to your attention that yesterday in Question Time Mr Dunham asked that the Leader of the Opposition table certain documents in relation to those matters. You said: ‘I am sure the member will have no trouble tabling that’. She indicated that she would, but I understand that in fact she did not table the documents. She is obviously a bit embarrassed about them and did not want copies of them floating about. I ask if the Leader of the Opposition could table the documents. Table them! You undertook to table them.
Mr SPEAKER: Where is the paper at this stage?
Mr REED: They were not tabled.
Mr SPEAKER: It was to have been tabled. That is my understanding.
Mr REED: Mr Speaker, I thank you for that. It is just another demonstration of the Leader of the Opposition’s deceit.
I will take the opportunity to table a copy of her Parliamentary Report. It says, talking about drug strategy: ‘Sadly, the CLP government gagged debate and voted for no change’. This was in the Assembly’s last sittings. I will table that.
It will be interesting for the media to take note of this because it is a demonstration of how deceitful the Leader of the Opposition is. The government did not gag debate. Can I tell you what happened on that occasion? Hansard records that the matter was not voted on, and it was not voted on was because the Leader of the Opposition did not even contribute to the debate. She was not even here at the time. The debate was set aside for the ALP’s business day. She did not even have the commitment to be in the House, yet she has the nerve to say to Territorians the debate was gagged. She was not even here. It just fell off the paper.
In terms of deceit, she has the lot. Of course, the other wonderful example - even her former workmates suffered - was when Adele, also known as Catherine, deceitfully concealed her identity. The Leader of the Opposition concealed her identity to her former workmates when she said, ‘Don’t call yourself Adele - call yourself Catherine’, being a bit deceitful. ‘They are only my former workmates. I will cover that up later’. That is the level that this lady operates at.
What she did yesterday was a profound demonstration of the level of deceit that the Leader of the Opposition will go to. This is the graph she produced yesterday. She did not table it. She gave a copy to Minister Dunham. ‘You can’t find it?’ She tabled this document …
A member: Should have tabled.
Mr REED: Well, she gave a copy to Minister Dunham. She promised she would table it, but did not.
… demonstrating her view that the attitude to the Territory government had fallen to 17%. Do you support your document? Yes, she says. She nods. ‘Yes, that is my document. That is what I said’.
Let me tell you now what actually happened. It is not a Telstra document. It happens to be the Yellow Pages. She could not even get the name of it right. We have been on to the Yellow Pages folk, and …
Mr Stirling: Why don’t you get on to the ABS?.
Mr REED: I thank you for that, because I will use that interjection.
In the conduct of this survey, there were two questions asked. One was in relation to attitude towards government, and the other was in relation to business confidence. Ms Martin, in her ultimate deceit, used the confidence-in-business answer to tack on to the last two years’ surveys of attitude towards government, because it presented her with a story that made the government look bad. She has used the results of one question to doctor, to amend unlawfully and mislead the House, the results of a latter survey.
She cannot deny this. She is on the public record. Even if she does not table it, she is in the paper today saying 17% . The 17% related to business confidence. It did not relate to attitude towards government.
Ms Martin interjecting.
Mr REED: No, that is your doctored sheet. That is the component of the Labor lies. We have a series of surveys …
Members interjecting.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! Order on both sides.
Mr REED: Your doctored graph.
… a series of surveys dating back to February 1998. In the last period, August 2000, attitude to Territory government, 40%. Now, that question was asked in this most recent survey, but it was not published. That is where they are caught out. It was not published. What was published was this new question in relation to business confidence. So she tacks on the business confidence response to a survey that had been undertaken in the past.
That is misleading the House. That is deceit at the highest, and that is the extent that that lady will go to mislead the media, trying to get the wrong impression across to mislead Territorians. No wonder the business community still are of the belief - their attitude towards the government is strong! They would not have anything to do with that mob opposite.
I want to pick up quickly the interjection made by Mr Motormouth over here, from Nhulunbuy, concerning the ABS. I thank him for the opportunity to table this letter.
Again, this week we heard the Leader of the Opposition saying: ‘How terrible! Gross state product zero. Everything is awful’. She will find something awful with this gas deal before lunch time, you watch. There will be something negative in there: ‘Oh, I don’t know about this’. She won’t be able to help herself.
These are amazing words for the Statistician. I will read this into Hansard and I will table it:
In the course of our conversation I stressed the difficult conceptual and practical compilation issues that we have to grapple with in putting together gross state product statistics, particularly the chain volume measures. For these reasons the latter are deemed to be experimental, but all of the statistics in Cat. No 5220.0 should be regarded as preliminary and subject to revision as more complete data become available.
That is to say …
Mr Stirling interjecting.
Mr REED: Just wait a minute. I do not argue with the result that the Australian Bureau of Statistics brought out in their report last week. But I do give credence to the fact, as have all financial analysts around the country, that the Statistician himself says these reports have to be clarified. You do not take any notice of them until they are reviewed, because they are so skewed as to be unreliable. He further qualifies, on the third page, that that is particularly the case for the Northern Territory.
There are two glaring, dreadful examples of how deceitful the opposition is and what lengths they will go to, not only to mislead this House but to mislead Territorians. I table both of those documents. They are an indictment on the Labor Party.
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, in the course of answering the question I draw to your attention that yesterday in Question Time Mr Dunham asked that the Leader of the Opposition table certain documents in relation to those matters. You said: ‘I am sure the member will have no trouble tabling that’. She indicated that she would, but I understand that in fact she did not table the documents. She is obviously a bit embarrassed about them and did not want copies of them floating about. I ask if the Leader of the Opposition could table the documents. Table them! You undertook to table them.
Mr SPEAKER: Where is the paper at this stage?
Mr REED: They were not tabled.
Mr SPEAKER: It was to have been tabled. That is my understanding.
Mr REED: Mr Speaker, I thank you for that. It is just another demonstration of the Leader of the Opposition’s deceit.
I will take the opportunity to table a copy of her Parliamentary Report. It says, talking about drug strategy: ‘Sadly, the CLP government gagged debate and voted for no change’. This was in the Assembly’s last sittings. I will table that.
It will be interesting for the media to take note of this because it is a demonstration of how deceitful the Leader of the Opposition is. The government did not gag debate. Can I tell you what happened on that occasion? Hansard records that the matter was not voted on, and it was not voted on was because the Leader of the Opposition did not even contribute to the debate. She was not even here at the time. The debate was set aside for the ALP’s business day. She did not even have the commitment to be in the House, yet she has the nerve to say to Territorians the debate was gagged. She was not even here. It just fell off the paper.
In terms of deceit, she has the lot. Of course, the other wonderful example - even her former workmates suffered - was when Adele, also known as Catherine, deceitfully concealed her identity. The Leader of the Opposition concealed her identity to her former workmates when she said, ‘Don’t call yourself Adele - call yourself Catherine’, being a bit deceitful. ‘They are only my former workmates. I will cover that up later’. That is the level that this lady operates at.
What she did yesterday was a profound demonstration of the level of deceit that the Leader of the Opposition will go to. This is the graph she produced yesterday. She did not table it. She gave a copy to Minister Dunham. ‘You can’t find it?’ She tabled this document …
A member: Should have tabled.
Mr REED: Well, she gave a copy to Minister Dunham. She promised she would table it, but did not.
… demonstrating her view that the attitude to the Territory government had fallen to 17%. Do you support your document? Yes, she says. She nods. ‘Yes, that is my document. That is what I said’.
Let me tell you now what actually happened. It is not a Telstra document. It happens to be the Yellow Pages. She could not even get the name of it right. We have been on to the Yellow Pages folk, and …
Mr Stirling: Why don’t you get on to the ABS?.
Mr REED: I thank you for that, because I will use that interjection.
In the conduct of this survey, there were two questions asked. One was in relation to attitude towards government, and the other was in relation to business confidence. Ms Martin, in her ultimate deceit, used the confidence-in-business answer to tack on to the last two years’ surveys of attitude towards government, because it presented her with a story that made the government look bad. She has used the results of one question to doctor, to amend unlawfully and mislead the House, the results of a latter survey.
She cannot deny this. She is on the public record. Even if she does not table it, she is in the paper today saying 17% . The 17% related to business confidence. It did not relate to attitude towards government.
Ms Martin interjecting.
Mr REED: No, that is your doctored sheet. That is the component of the Labor lies. We have a series of surveys …
Members interjecting.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! Order on both sides.
Mr REED: Your doctored graph.
… a series of surveys dating back to February 1998. In the last period, August 2000, attitude to Territory government, 40%. Now, that question was asked in this most recent survey, but it was not published. That is where they are caught out. It was not published. What was published was this new question in relation to business confidence. So she tacks on the business confidence response to a survey that had been undertaken in the past.
That is misleading the House. That is deceit at the highest, and that is the extent that that lady will go to mislead the media, trying to get the wrong impression across to mislead Territorians. No wonder the business community still are of the belief - their attitude towards the government is strong! They would not have anything to do with that mob opposite.
I want to pick up quickly the interjection made by Mr Motormouth over here, from Nhulunbuy, concerning the ABS. I thank him for the opportunity to table this letter.
Again, this week we heard the Leader of the Opposition saying: ‘How terrible! Gross state product zero. Everything is awful’. She will find something awful with this gas deal before lunch time, you watch. There will be something negative in there: ‘Oh, I don’t know about this’. She won’t be able to help herself.
These are amazing words for the Statistician. I will read this into Hansard and I will table it:
In the course of our conversation I stressed the difficult conceptual and practical compilation issues that we have to grapple with in putting together gross state product statistics, particularly the chain volume measures. For these reasons the latter are deemed to be experimental, but all of the statistics in Cat. No 5220.0 should be regarded as preliminary and subject to revision as more complete data become available.
That is to say …
Mr Stirling interjecting.
Mr REED: Just wait a minute. I do not argue with the result that the Australian Bureau of Statistics brought out in their report last week. But I do give credence to the fact, as have all financial analysts around the country, that the Statistician himself says these reports have to be clarified. You do not take any notice of them until they are reviewed, because they are so skewed as to be unreliable. He further qualifies, on the third page, that that is particularly the case for the Northern Territory.
There are two glaring, dreadful examples of how deceitful the opposition is and what lengths they will go to, not only to mislead this House but to mislead Territorians. I table both of those documents. They are an indictment on the Labor Party.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016