Question Time

Tabled Documents

The Hon. N.J. CENTOFANTI (Leader of the Opposition) (14:18): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs regarding tabled information in the Legislative Council.

Leave granted.

The Hon. N.J. CENTOFANTI: On 19 August, the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs tabled a document in this place containing inaccurate information about plankton counts. That error was only identified after media questioning and a second document had to be tabled on 2 September correcting the record, citing administrative error and human error in the collation and recording of data.

Yesterday, both Minister Scriven and the Attorney-General himself stood in this chamber and stressed the importance of accurate, factual and truthful information being provided to parliament, parliamentary committees and the public. So my questions to the Attorney are:

1. How does the Attorney reconcile his own statements about the importance of accuracy with the fact that his government tabled documents—in fact, he tabled documents—in this place that were just plainly wrong?

2. Will the Attorney apologise for misleading the parliament and the people of South Australia?

3. As accuracy is critical, will he also apply the same standards to himself and accept responsibility for tabling false information?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector, Special Minister of State) (14:19): I thank the honourable member for her question and the invitation to point out the very, very stark difference between what this government has done and the actions of the Hon. Frank Pangallo, the very, very stark difference, when government officers from PIRSA prepare a report and an individual public sector officer makes a mistake in some way in how it is done. We value the public sector, unlike those opposite, as compared to what appears to have happened with the Hon. Frank Pangallo, who deliberately made things up. There were things that were tabled—

The Hon. F. PANGALLO: Point of order.

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Pangallo has a point of order. We are obviously having a few issues with the clock at the moment, so we will work around that.

The Hon. F. PANGALLO: That is just untrue, absolutely untrue.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. F. PANGALLO: I am just asking the Attorney to withdraw that remark. There is no evidence of that all. No evidence at all. It's his opinion.

The PRESIDENT: Attorney, have you finished your answer to the question?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: No, sir, I certainly have not, because I think this is a very important issue that's raised. The Hon. Frank Pangallo has been asked to clarify where these documents that he gave Budget and Finance can be found. It appears one of them—because the author of one of them has been contacted and that author said they never wrote anything of the sort. So how you can not describe that as just made up is beyond me, is clearly beyond me.

You have a departmental officer from the public sector whose work we value, unlike many of those from the opposite side, making some sort of administrative error compared to making up a reference that the author said doesn't even exist. It is stark, dramatic, worlds apart in these things.