Mrs HICKEY - 2000-02-29
Thank you, Mr Speaker. Last week the Chief Minister used question time to accuse the Deputy Opposition Leader of having called the former speaker, Braham, a liar and corrupt during debate to elect the Speaker in November 1997. The Hansard of the day shows that the member for Nhulunbuy said no such thing. This means that the Chief Minister has misled this House. Will the Chief Minister take this opportunity to admit he was wrong, withdraw the allegations and correct the public record?
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, I don’t admit I was wrong, and I don’t apologise. What I did say, and I did check because the member for Nhulunbuy was making statements in the adjournment speech about the fact that I had misled the House. I checked the Hansard and my words were: ‘and I would remind honourable members, the highest position in this House, is a position of some authority, at that time the now Deputy Leader of the Opposition had this to say’, and I corrected that by saying: ‘Well, this is a report of what he had to say, I haven’t got the Hansard, but it is in quoting here that he said’. I then referred to a newspaper article, in fact there were 2 newspaper articles, one, the Centralian Advocate on 28 November, which quotes: ‘Nhulunbuy MLA, Syd Stirling, in an unprecedented attack, accused Mrs Braham of being corrupt and a liar over her failure to present a dissenting report of the Public Accounts Committee to Parliament last year …’. On 26 November in the NT News - the reporter was Nicki Voss – I would be interested to see how she interpreted his comments when he probably had an interview with her. Nicki Voss wrote this on 26 November 1997: ‘Nhulunbuy MLA Syd Stirling, in an unprecedented attack, accused Mrs Braham of being corrupt and a liar before members of the Legislative Assembly voted on the Speaker’s position’.
If the member for Nhulunbuy is so aggrieved by those comments I suggest that he would have already taken it up with the NT News and the Centralian Advocate. The fact that he didn’t was because the reporter interpreted his comments. The reporter wrote a report which suited the member for Nhulunbuy entirely, that’s why he hasn’t corrected it. So don’t go looking at me and talking about being aggrieved at this stage.
The other thing I might add is that he’s fairly loose with the word ‘corrupt’, because I’ve got a column, Syd’s Column from the Arafura Times, 23 February 2000, and in Syd’s column he says in reference to the CLP government, ‘At the same time they do nothing to reduce crime by attacking the real causes. In fact by corrupting the judicial system so that both very minor and major property offenders go to prison’.
Mr Stirling: That’s exactly right.
Mr BURKE: I say again, Mr Speaker …
Mr Stirling: That’s exactly what they do, they corrupt the process.
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr BURKE: Mr Speaker, we now have the member for Nhulunbuy …
Mr Stirling: There’s a big difference corrupting the process …
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr BURKE: Oh no, no, no, let’s get the definition of ‘corrupt’ right - let’s get the definition of ‘corrupt’ right …
Mr Stirling interjecting.
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr BURKE: It’s the member for Nhulunbuy who now claims by his own definition that the judicial system is corrupt. It is just the agent of corruption where we differ.
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, I don’t admit I was wrong, and I don’t apologise. What I did say, and I did check because the member for Nhulunbuy was making statements in the adjournment speech about the fact that I had misled the House. I checked the Hansard and my words were: ‘and I would remind honourable members, the highest position in this House, is a position of some authority, at that time the now Deputy Leader of the Opposition had this to say’, and I corrected that by saying: ‘Well, this is a report of what he had to say, I haven’t got the Hansard, but it is in quoting here that he said’. I then referred to a newspaper article, in fact there were 2 newspaper articles, one, the Centralian Advocate on 28 November, which quotes: ‘Nhulunbuy MLA, Syd Stirling, in an unprecedented attack, accused Mrs Braham of being corrupt and a liar over her failure to present a dissenting report of the Public Accounts Committee to Parliament last year …’. On 26 November in the NT News - the reporter was Nicki Voss – I would be interested to see how she interpreted his comments when he probably had an interview with her. Nicki Voss wrote this on 26 November 1997: ‘Nhulunbuy MLA Syd Stirling, in an unprecedented attack, accused Mrs Braham of being corrupt and a liar before members of the Legislative Assembly voted on the Speaker’s position’.
If the member for Nhulunbuy is so aggrieved by those comments I suggest that he would have already taken it up with the NT News and the Centralian Advocate. The fact that he didn’t was because the reporter interpreted his comments. The reporter wrote a report which suited the member for Nhulunbuy entirely, that’s why he hasn’t corrected it. So don’t go looking at me and talking about being aggrieved at this stage.
The other thing I might add is that he’s fairly loose with the word ‘corrupt’, because I’ve got a column, Syd’s Column from the Arafura Times, 23 February 2000, and in Syd’s column he says in reference to the CLP government, ‘At the same time they do nothing to reduce crime by attacking the real causes. In fact by corrupting the judicial system so that both very minor and major property offenders go to prison’.
Mr Stirling: That’s exactly right.
Mr BURKE: I say again, Mr Speaker …
Mr Stirling: That’s exactly what they do, they corrupt the process.
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr BURKE: Mr Speaker, we now have the member for Nhulunbuy …
Mr Stirling: There’s a big difference corrupting the process …
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr BURKE: Oh no, no, no, let’s get the definition of ‘corrupt’ right - let’s get the definition of ‘corrupt’ right …
Mr Stirling interjecting.
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr BURKE: It’s the member for Nhulunbuy who now claims by his own definition that the judicial system is corrupt. It is just the agent of corruption where we differ.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016