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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-09-12 Daily Xml
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CHILD PROTECTION INQUIRY

The Hon. I.F. EVANS (Davenport) (15:31): The corridors are talking about Premier Weatherill's mishandling and misjudgement—

The SPEAKER: The member for Davenport will be seated. The member for Davenport will not refer to the Premier by his surname. He will refer to him by his office, and the member for Davenport has been here long enough (20 years on my calculations almost) to know that. The member for Davenport.

The Hon. I.F. EVANS: I wish to comment today on the matter of the corridors are talking about the misjudgement of the Premier in regards to the handling by his office of the Debelle inquiry. The reality is that there are many people within the Labor government who are shaking their heads at how the government could get itself into this position so close to the March 2014 election. Many of them are saying that this would not have happened under the leadership of the former premier and his staffer Ms Bottrall. The reality is that the Weatherill government, the Labor government, if I can put it in that term, has mishandled this position, and that is a view held by members of the Labor Party.

The Premier complains about an upper house committee being set up. His own side are asking the question: what would he expect when the Premier refuses to reopen the royal commission, when it is obvious to everyone that there is information that has since become available that was not available to the royal commission at the time? It is quite within the rights of the parliament to open an inquiry.

The Premier's claim today that there has never been a criticism of a royal commission in this house or in the other place I think bears scrutiny by the media. There have been some quite significant royal commissions over time in South Australia. The sacking of the police commissioner, Mr Salisbury, many years ago I think might have attracted some attention to the state and some criticism, and there are a number of others throughout the history of the state.

It is crystal clear that the Premier is mishandling this issue. There is no better example of the nervousness within Labor in that the three leadership contenders rolled up to the courts building today to do an announcement about the next step of the court development at Victoria Square. Then we come back into parliament, and the Premier is having his run with his questions, and what do we get?

We get two of the three alternative leaders, the Attorney-General and the Minister for Infrastructure, both being asked Dorothy Dixers about the same project and about the same press release. They are trying to get equal share. It is a bit like the media during an election campaign; they are trying to be fair to all sides within the caucus. It is pretty clear that within the government the corridors have started to talk about the Premier's handling of the Debelle inquiry.

As mentioned earlier, I have been around the place for nearly 20 years, and my experience tells me one thing: when Premiers start suing people, suing media outlets and suing journalists, it generally indicates that they are under significant pressure. The Premier came into the parliament as the white knight on the big white stallion; he was going to be the white knight and set a new standard for the parliament. 'Serious questions deserve serious answers,' the Premier told us, except if the parliament dares to set up an inquiry where the Premier has said that he simply will not cooperate. In the public's mind that raises the question: what are they trying to hide?

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