Mr BAILEY - 1994-08-25
Mr BAILEY (Wanguri)(by leave): Mr Speaker, I am waiting on an Ombudsman's report because the minister has asked me specifically to respond to his accusations
Mr Finch: No, table the letter.
Mr BAILEY: The issue concerning BCF has been interesting. Yesterday, we moved to have standing orders suspended to enable the issue to be referred to a committee of inquiry. For the last few days, I have been raising my concerns about the Department of Law's lack of action on passing on relevant coronial findings to appropriate departments and authorities, thereby leading to the death of Mark Halliday. The government chose not to allow that debate to proceed at all. It used its numbers to gag it. In other words, it would not let this side of the Assembly raise the issues that we wanted to raise and include in that debate. The minister now says: 'Give us all the information ...
Mr PERRON: A point of order, Mr Speaker! The honourable member was challenged during Question Time to take the opportunity to offer a personal explanation about a very specific matter - namely, advice that he had received in writing from the Ombudsman that has been suggested may not exist. I ask the honourable member, through yourself, Mr Speaker, to address that in his personal explanation. All he has to do is table the letter from the Ombudsman wherein the Ombudsman told him that the Department of Law and the Department of Education had been obstructionist in his investigations into certain matters.
Mr Bailey: Let me get there.
Mr PERRON: That is all he has to do by way of explanation. If he thinks he is going to roam over 12 months of debate in a personal explanation, he is very wrong because he is breaching standing orders by roving so far from the point.
Mr BAILEY: Speaking to the point of order, Mr Speaker, it is quite clear that a personal explanation is not a process during which one takes up challenges from ministers opposite to do something. The purpose of a personal explanation is to explain personally the way one has been misrepresented or misquoted. For the benefit of the Chief Minister, that is what a personal explanation is about.
Mr SPEAKER: You are quite right in fact. A personal explanation does allow the member time to put his point of view across with respect to how he has been misrepresented. I ask the member to contain his remarks to that personal explanation and not to introduce new matter.
Mr BAILEY: Mr Speaker, the matter that I am introducing is not new. As everyone is saying, I have been through it before. The issue is that the minister's accusation is that the
Page 94 (QUESTIONS)
information that I have given to this Assembly in the past has led to my misleading the House. What I am saying is that the information that I have provided is part of an overall agenda whereby I am trying to get up an inquiry into the issue of BCF fire extinguishers and a death at Darwin High School.
Mr Speaker, I have a letter from the Ombudsman, dated 24 December 1993, that was written to me in confidence. That letter details the concerns and the problems that the Ombudsman had been having with the Department of Law. He was ...
Mr Manzie: Read out the bit where it says that they deliberately obstructed him. Just read that bit out.
Mr BAILEY: ... saying that he was unhappy with the response he was getting from them.
Mr Speaker, I refer members to the Ombudsman's report of 1992-93 and the section relating to the inquiry into the Department of Education. The issue that I referred to the Ombudsman in the first instance, which was that of Anita Williams being interviewed at Darwin High School after she went to the media following the BCF matter, is detailed at length in this report. That report was left on the Notice Paper for some 12 months. It was never debated in the Assembly because the government never brought it on again for debate. Finally, it dropped off the Notice Paper.
In conversations also that I have had with the Ombudsman, he has said that, following this report in which he stated quite categorically that the Department of Education needed to put into place procedures for interviewing students, dealing with students and teachers, dealing with the media etc, the department has yet to come up with any guidelines on those matters.
This letter, which I am happy to table ...
Mr Perron: Good.
Mr Finch: Read a clause. Read a sentence. Read just one sentence.
Members interjecting.
Mr Bell: You blokes are not going to try and crawl out of this on the basis of the missing word 'deliberately', are you?
A member: Deliberately obstructionist.
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr Bell: You blokes are playing politics over the death of a high school student.
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr Manzie: Who has the agenda?
Page 95 (QUESTIONS)
Mr Bell: Shame on you!
Mr BAILEY: Mr Speaker, this is disgraceful. He is the man who came in here with the Director of Public Prosecution's documents on a case ...
Mr Manzie: You are the one on the spot.
Mr BAILEY: ... and read them out in an attempt to totally destroy a member of this Assembly when no charges had been laid. I am happy to table the letter when members opposite allow an independent inquiry into this issue at which all of the relevant documentation may be tabled. At the moment, it remains confidential, as the Ombudsman requested that it be. If you want to debate it, bring it on and I will give you a full debate.
Page 96 (QUESTIONS)
Mr Finch: No, table the letter.
Mr BAILEY: The issue concerning BCF has been interesting. Yesterday, we moved to have standing orders suspended to enable the issue to be referred to a committee of inquiry. For the last few days, I have been raising my concerns about the Department of Law's lack of action on passing on relevant coronial findings to appropriate departments and authorities, thereby leading to the death of Mark Halliday. The government chose not to allow that debate to proceed at all. It used its numbers to gag it. In other words, it would not let this side of the Assembly raise the issues that we wanted to raise and include in that debate. The minister now says: 'Give us all the information ...
Mr PERRON: A point of order, Mr Speaker! The honourable member was challenged during Question Time to take the opportunity to offer a personal explanation about a very specific matter - namely, advice that he had received in writing from the Ombudsman that has been suggested may not exist. I ask the honourable member, through yourself, Mr Speaker, to address that in his personal explanation. All he has to do is table the letter from the Ombudsman wherein the Ombudsman told him that the Department of Law and the Department of Education had been obstructionist in his investigations into certain matters.
Mr Bailey: Let me get there.
Mr PERRON: That is all he has to do by way of explanation. If he thinks he is going to roam over 12 months of debate in a personal explanation, he is very wrong because he is breaching standing orders by roving so far from the point.
Mr BAILEY: Speaking to the point of order, Mr Speaker, it is quite clear that a personal explanation is not a process during which one takes up challenges from ministers opposite to do something. The purpose of a personal explanation is to explain personally the way one has been misrepresented or misquoted. For the benefit of the Chief Minister, that is what a personal explanation is about.
Mr SPEAKER: You are quite right in fact. A personal explanation does allow the member time to put his point of view across with respect to how he has been misrepresented. I ask the member to contain his remarks to that personal explanation and not to introduce new matter.
Mr BAILEY: Mr Speaker, the matter that I am introducing is not new. As everyone is saying, I have been through it before. The issue is that the minister's accusation is that the
Page 94 (QUESTIONS)
information that I have given to this Assembly in the past has led to my misleading the House. What I am saying is that the information that I have provided is part of an overall agenda whereby I am trying to get up an inquiry into the issue of BCF fire extinguishers and a death at Darwin High School.
Mr Speaker, I have a letter from the Ombudsman, dated 24 December 1993, that was written to me in confidence. That letter details the concerns and the problems that the Ombudsman had been having with the Department of Law. He was ...
Mr Manzie: Read out the bit where it says that they deliberately obstructed him. Just read that bit out.
Mr BAILEY: ... saying that he was unhappy with the response he was getting from them.
Mr Speaker, I refer members to the Ombudsman's report of 1992-93 and the section relating to the inquiry into the Department of Education. The issue that I referred to the Ombudsman in the first instance, which was that of Anita Williams being interviewed at Darwin High School after she went to the media following the BCF matter, is detailed at length in this report. That report was left on the Notice Paper for some 12 months. It was never debated in the Assembly because the government never brought it on again for debate. Finally, it dropped off the Notice Paper.
In conversations also that I have had with the Ombudsman, he has said that, following this report in which he stated quite categorically that the Department of Education needed to put into place procedures for interviewing students, dealing with students and teachers, dealing with the media etc, the department has yet to come up with any guidelines on those matters.
This letter, which I am happy to table ...
Mr Perron: Good.
Mr Finch: Read a clause. Read a sentence. Read just one sentence.
Members interjecting.
Mr Bell: You blokes are not going to try and crawl out of this on the basis of the missing word 'deliberately', are you?
A member: Deliberately obstructionist.
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr Bell: You blokes are playing politics over the death of a high school student.
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr Manzie: Who has the agenda?
Page 95 (QUESTIONS)
Mr Bell: Shame on you!
Mr BAILEY: Mr Speaker, this is disgraceful. He is the man who came in here with the Director of Public Prosecution's documents on a case ...
Mr Manzie: You are the one on the spot.
Mr BAILEY: ... and read them out in an attempt to totally destroy a member of this Assembly when no charges had been laid. I am happy to table the letter when members opposite allow an independent inquiry into this issue at which all of the relevant documentation may be tabled. At the moment, it remains confidential, as the Ombudsman requested that it be. If you want to debate it, bring it on and I will give you a full debate.
Page 96 (QUESTIONS)
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016