Mr BURKE - 2005-05-05
In parliament on 17 February 2005 in response to the knowledge that the opposition had gained access to your government dirt files that you held on many Territorians, in accusing my office of hacking into secure government files, you said:
You would be aware that I have subsequently written to the Ombudsman, who has completed his report. I will quote in part from the Ombudsman, who said, in response to my concern:
Given the gravity of your allegations against my office, will you now withdraw these comments and apologise for the allegations you made?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, let us get the parameters of this answer right. The government does not hold a dirt file on Territorians, absolutely not. That is just another one of the smears of the CLP opposition. It is a media quotes database, the same database structure that they had when they were in government. Let us get that fact straight right now: the government does not hold a dirt file on Territorians: never has; never will. It contains public record comments in the same way that the CLP used its media quotes database.
The issue here goes to the integrity of the Leader of the Opposition and whether he can be trusted with the truth. The fact is, and I do not have the Ombudsman’s letter with me, but on 14 separate occasions, someone in the Leader of the Opposition’s office knowingly accessed this database to which they knew they had no authorised access. Not once, so it was not accidental; not twice, but on 14 separate occasions. One has to ask under whose instructions did they access this unauthorised database on 14 separate occasions?
I owe the Leader of the Opposition no apology whatsoever. The Leader of the Opposition has lost his integrity in this debate because on not one occasion, not two occasions, but 14 separate occasions did his office access a database that they knew they had no access to. To my mind, that is hacking.
- Given the Opposition Leader's office had hacked into an unauthorised area of government security, what other government networks have been hacked into by the Opposition Leader's office?
You would be aware that I have subsequently written to the Ombudsman, who has completed his report. I will quote in part from the Ombudsman, who said, in response to my concern:
- It is apparent that the access to the government media database occurred as a result of a computer security failure and this inadvertently allowed access by your office to a database that would normally be unable to be accessed by your office.
Given the gravity of your allegations against my office, will you now withdraw these comments and apologise for the allegations you made?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, let us get the parameters of this answer right. The government does not hold a dirt file on Territorians, absolutely not. That is just another one of the smears of the CLP opposition. It is a media quotes database, the same database structure that they had when they were in government. Let us get that fact straight right now: the government does not hold a dirt file on Territorians: never has; never will. It contains public record comments in the same way that the CLP used its media quotes database.
The issue here goes to the integrity of the Leader of the Opposition and whether he can be trusted with the truth. The fact is, and I do not have the Ombudsman’s letter with me, but on 14 separate occasions, someone in the Leader of the Opposition’s office knowingly accessed this database to which they knew they had no authorised access. Not once, so it was not accidental; not twice, but on 14 separate occasions. One has to ask under whose instructions did they access this unauthorised database on 14 separate occasions?
I owe the Leader of the Opposition no apology whatsoever. The Leader of the Opposition has lost his integrity in this debate because on not one occasion, not two occasions, but 14 separate occasions did his office access a database that they knew they had no access to. To my mind, that is hacking.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016