Ms CARNEY - 2005-10-12
The Northern Territory Public Service is currently awash with rumours about the relationship between your public service head, Paul Tyrrell, and the ALP’s spin machine, Hawker Britton. Crikey.com is reporting that he turned up at ‘party strategy meetings with ALP spinners, Hawker Britton’. The National Indigenous Times has labelled your CEO ‘a participant in developing your racist campaign at the last Northern Territory election’. It is concerning that you have done nothing to protect your head public servant from these allegations reported in the national media, and we would like to know why you have not?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, what an extraordinarily ridiculous question. How do you so-called ‘protect’ people from things that are simply made up? If you could predict that somebody was going to - say for example, in the National Indigenous Times or in Crikey.com - make up something, then maybe you could do something about it.
Ms Carney: So he was not at those meetings?
Ms MARTIN: I have read both those articles you referred to, and they are simply not true. If the Opposition Leader had been concerned, she might have rung me straightaway and said: ‘I am concerned about this’ ...
Members interjecting.
Ms MARTIN: If her concern is about protecting public servants, I would have thought that she would have rung straightaway. I say very clearly that, as head of the public sector, my CEO understands what the role of a CEO is, and what the divide is between that and being involved in party politics. He has been in the public sector for a long time. He has been a CEO for a long time, and certainly understands where that divide is. There is absolutely no way that I, as Chief Minister - or any minister in this government - would want a CEO to cross that line. I believe we are very conscious of it all the time.
The report in Crikey.com is a type of leap of imagination – you take some facts, put them in a different time frame and you make a conspiracy. We have seen that before in this House, and where does it usually come from? The opposition.
Ms Carney: Crikey.com! It is even in Mr Latham’s book; such a valuable resource is Crikey.com.
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order! Leader of the Opposition, you will cease interjecting.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, what an extraordinarily ridiculous question. How do you so-called ‘protect’ people from things that are simply made up? If you could predict that somebody was going to - say for example, in the National Indigenous Times or in Crikey.com - make up something, then maybe you could do something about it.
Ms Carney: So he was not at those meetings?
Ms MARTIN: I have read both those articles you referred to, and they are simply not true. If the Opposition Leader had been concerned, she might have rung me straightaway and said: ‘I am concerned about this’ ...
Members interjecting.
Ms MARTIN: If her concern is about protecting public servants, I would have thought that she would have rung straightaway. I say very clearly that, as head of the public sector, my CEO understands what the role of a CEO is, and what the divide is between that and being involved in party politics. He has been in the public sector for a long time. He has been a CEO for a long time, and certainly understands where that divide is. There is absolutely no way that I, as Chief Minister - or any minister in this government - would want a CEO to cross that line. I believe we are very conscious of it all the time.
The report in Crikey.com is a type of leap of imagination – you take some facts, put them in a different time frame and you make a conspiracy. We have seen that before in this House, and where does it usually come from? The opposition.
Ms Carney: Crikey.com! It is even in Mr Latham’s book; such a valuable resource is Crikey.com.
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order! Leader of the Opposition, you will cease interjecting.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016