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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-10-14 Daily Xml
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Matter of Privilege

Indigenous Communities Funding

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (11:02): Sir, I raise a matter of privilege. On Thursday 25 September 2014, an answer given to me, or given to the house, by the Premier has some matters that need to be attended to. That afternoon during question time, I asked the Premier several questions on the funding of remote Indigenous communities. One of the questions was: did the Premier agree to South Australia accepting responsibility for municipal service delivery when he was the minister for Aboriginal affairs? In his answer, the Premier said that, as far as he could remember he said no, he did not, and his position had always been that he had resisted the matter. He went on in his answer to say, 'I think we have resisted it and I think all evidence is to the contrary.'

The Premier did not come back to the parliament or publicly or privately raise this matter to clarify his answer and as such I can only conclude that he wants the parliament and the public to believe that he did not agree to accepting responsibility for municipal services when he was minister for Aboriginal affairs. I have a copy of a letter from the federal minister for Aboriginal affairs, the Hon. Mal Brough, dated 20 July 2007. In the third paragraph of that letter, the then minister Brough points out that the now Premier, then minister for Aboriginal affairs, did previously agree to taking on the municipal service funding.

Two other letters from the Premier as the former minister for Aboriginal affairs to the then federal minister for Aboriginal affairs, Mal Brough, dated 27 June 2006 and 8 August 2007 contain information regarding the arrangements to be put in place before South Australia would accept the responsibility for municipal service funding for remote Indigenous housing.

Clearly, an agreement had been reached; it was just the detail was yet to be worked out. A further letter dated 28 August 2007 from the then minister for Aboriginal affairs, now the Premier, clearly states that there is an arrangement for the transfer of municipal services being worked on. As the Premier has not clarified his answer from 25 September 2014, I ask that you establish a privileges committee to examine the evidence and to determine whether the Premier has indeed misled the house.

The SPEAKER: I do not think the member for Morphett is asking me to establish a privileges committee because I cannot do that. What I can do is give priority to the house considering whether it will establish a privileges committee and, if I did decide that, the member for Morphett's motion would take precedence over all other business of the house including question time. So, what I will do is that I will consider the member for Morphett's request to give priority to a debate from a proposition that presumably will come from him, that the house establish a privileges committee.

I will consider the member's documents and then decide whether there is a prima facie case of breach of privilege and, if I decide that, then the member for Morphett will move a motion for a privileges committee of the house and that will take precedence over all other business of the house. There is a second matter.

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