2015-09-17
Mr BARBER (Northern Metropolitan) — I move:
That debate on this bill be adjourned until later this day.
In doing so I want to provide my rationale. As I said this morning, I believe that out there among the public, outside this place, people are hearing very disturbing reports — literally from the horse's mouth in some cases — that suggest that misuse of parliamentary entitlements has occurred, and I find it fairly preposterous that we would spend our time here this afternoon debating some minor piece of legislation when the most important thing for the protection of this democracy is to restore public confidence in this institution.
As far as we know — and we will get this feedback as members — people are sitting out there thinking that every single one of us is a rorter. The reality is that at the end of the day it is members of Parliament who have to enforce the rules upon themselves. I think that makes our burden even higher in terms of winning and maintaining the public trust.
We could have heard first up this morning a ministerial statement from the government explaining the full particulars of this matter and disclosing all the necessary information for us to make a judgement. Instead what we are getting is denial, denial, denial. When confronted with the words of what we understand is a whistleblower with some veracity, the Leader of the Government said, 'Well, that person must be confused'. We need to very much get past the confused stage and get some real facts on the table.
I learnt from listening to the lower house's question time that the Speaker of that place has asked the audit committee of Parliamentary Services to look into the matter. I am familiar with the terms of reference of the audit committee and I do not think it achieves the objectives that I have been waiting to hear for some weeks now. Therefore I believe we are headed towards some sort of investigation in this place. But as I said, my objective would be to hear the government give a full accounting of this matter and not simply continue to deny that any wrongdoing attaches to it.
For the benefit of any doubt let me just read into the record what the member's guide says about electorate officers:
Electorate officers are employees of the Parliament of Victoria, and are directly accountable to the member in whose electorate office they work.
Each member of the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council is entitled to two … full-time equivalent … electorate officer positions funded by the Parliament. These positions are provided to support the member in their parliamentary and electorate duties. The Parliament does not fund positions to support the member's political or party duties.
Some people might say that is a grey area; some people might try to apply a pub test to it. I think the simple and ordinary common-sense meaning of these words is what is at issue here. Even in question time today we heard ducking and weaving around this. This is an urgent matter. If the government wants to come forward and make further disclosures and give a further explanation of its position, we would welcome that, but we cannot just sit here debating minor bills pretending that nothing is happening.