Legislative Council President

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:25): My question is to the Premier. Is the Premier aware that the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption has now taken statements from witnesses regarding the actions of the President in another place, Mr Russell Wortley, when he was an official at the gas employees union?

Mr Goldsworthy interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Kavel is called to order.

The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Justice Reform, Minister for Planning, Minister for Housing and Urban Development, Minister for Industrial Relations) (14:25): Indeed, he's been disrupting them all day so far.

The SPEAKER: He's been doing it all day.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I'm glad you've caught up with him.

Mr Marshall: Is that your answer?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Well, it can be, if you would prefer. First of all, let's be clear: the royal commission was established by the present federal government to look into matters they think might be of political advantage to them. Let's be clear on what it is.

Mr PISONI: Point of order: surely the minister is entering into debate.

The SPEAKER: The point of order is bogus. I call the member for Unley to order, and he is lucky he is not on his way out of the chamber. Deputy Premier.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. That royal commission will go on about its business as it sees fit. This government has no control whatsoever about how that royal commission proceeds. We have had conversations about this matter in one or other of the chambers of this parliament going back for years. I think, in fact, if my memory serves me correctly, that before the President was even a member of this place, the portend of him coming must have been detected by the auguries because they were out there beating the tom-toms about this very issue.

The SPEAKER: 1995.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: In 1995—in fact, probably more than a decade ahead of his arrival there was a drum-roll about this matter—

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: And yet they voted for him to be President.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: —and they voted for him to be President. In spite of the fact that, since 1995, they had been troubled by this terrible, terrible matter, they thought they would cure the defect by voting for him as President. There is nothing new about this matter. The only thing that is new about this matter is the new angle of engagement. The story has been around and around and around.

I don't know what the federal royal commission is going to make of this matter, but it is a very old story—a very old story that has been ventilated periodically, certainly in the other place, and has taken nobody anywhere. So far as I am aware, there has never been any scintilla of evidence produced to suggest that there is any substance to any of these suggestions. The matter remains where it has always been, so far as we are concerned, which is that we have a series of unsubstantiated, varying degrees of vague allegations which have been vented periodically for nearly the last 20 years, and we don't anticipate that that matter will change in any way.