House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2008-11-27 Daily Xml

Contents

EASLING, MR T.

The Hon. I.F. EVANS (Davenport) (15:03): My question is to the Minister for Families and Communities. In answering a question about Tom Easling on 30 October, where she claimed that 'we had people going into that house and finding semi-naked boys in his bed', did she accurately summarise the information in her possession?

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON (Croydon—Attorney-General, Minister for Justice, Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Minister for Veterans' Affairs) (15:03): I think the parliamentary Liberal Party must be suffering great trepidation each time it hears the member for Davenport rise to his feet on this matter. They must wonder what they are going to be lumbered with at the end of the process.

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, the deputy leader!

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: The answer is that anyone who with a fair mind reads Justice David's summing up, the trial transcript and the documents provided to the defence in the Easling case would understand that everything said by government ministers in this house has a more than adequate substratum of fact. The member for Davenport would know exactly the incident in the trial and the summing up to which the minister was referring. One thing the member for Davenport never mentions is that some of those verdicts were majority verdicts.