House of Assembly Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1) 52 1 Parliament of South Australia House of Assembly published Personal Explanation Personal Explanation Attorney-General's Remarks ATTORNEY-GENERAL'S REMARKS Mr PEDERICK House of Assembly Hammond Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (17:55): I seek leave to make a personal explanation. Leave granted. Mr PEDERICK House of Assembly Mr PEDERICK: Thank you, Madam Speaker. In the course of this debate the Attorney-General sought to mention my office—and I am in charge of my office, so I do believe it qualifies as a personal explanation—and mentioned my staffer, Helen Dwyer. I myself will take all the hits in this house that I need to. It is a place of robust debate, but I think it is unfair to bring staffers' names into the debate. It was about the substance of whether we were ready to debate bills or not in this place. The simple fact is, as a matter of courtesy in the correspondence it was indicated that we were in a state of readiness to debate the bill today, but that is a matter of courtesy, because very rarely if you ask for debate to be postponed, does it happen. What I will indicate is that verbally it was indicated by my staffer to the government that we were not ready to debate bills and the simple fact is that three of these bills—the Evidence (Identification) Amendment Bill, the Electronic Transactions (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill and the Controlled Substances (Offences Relating to Instructions) Amendment Bill—were all only introduced in the last sitting week, and it gives us very little time to prepare. I will say in my personal explanation that if the government wants to stoop to this level of bringing my office and my staffers into disrepute we will be very circumspect in our correspondence.