Mid-Autumn Festival

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (14:52): My question is to the Assistant Minister to the Premier regarding multicultural affairs. Can the assistant minister understand why so many people in the multicultural community are angry after she recently held a massive fundraising dinner in honour of herself, no-one knew the dinner was a Liberal fundraiser, and then yesterday claimed that she attended a Chinese business dinner last weekend on behalf of the Premier so that people could, and I quote, 'pay tribute to me'?

Having published a sum total of just three media releases in almost four years, how does the assistant minister think her work compares to the people that this parliament often pays tribute to, including police, nurses and people who have spent decades fighting for justice for vulnerable people?

The PRESIDENT: I call the assistant minister. There was some request for your opinion in that and I think you need to address that, as the assistant minister would normally do.

The Hon. J.S. LEE (14:53): I think the opposition has run out of questions and is wasting parliament's question time. These questions, over and over again, about attending events, have been canvassed by the opposition and answers have been placed in this chamber and you can look up Hansard.

We all, as members of parliament, get invited to many, many events. I am not the only member of parliament who gets invited to multicultural events. Crossbench MPs and other members—whether it is frontbench, shadow ministers, ministers—all get invited to multicultural events, but nobody gets picked up the way that the Labor opposition keeps having a personal attack on me. I think these bullying tactics are unacceptable, unacceptable in a place like this—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. J.S. LEE: —when we hold the standards of our politicians in the highest regard. It's really disappointing. In terms of particularly answering the questions about the CBNSA event, government members are invited, opposition members are invited. I cannot stop or reorganise a program of the organising committee. What they wished to do wasn't something informed to me. It was spontaneous by the president on the night. I didn't even know my name was called when he just came and said, 'The Hon. Jing Lee, please come to the front.'

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. J.S. LEE: Just because—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! The opposition might want to listen to the answer.

The Hon. J.S. LEE: Just because the Leader of the Opposition did not understand Chinese language and perhaps not had a translator on hand to interpret matters—

The Hon. R.P. Wortley interjecting:

The Hon. J.S. LEE: Did the Hon. Russell Wortley attend the event? He was not there. Does he have all the facts correct? No. Maybe he wanted to be there but he was not invited.

The PRESIDENT: A supplementary, the Hon. Mr Wortley, arising from the answer?