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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-11-12 Daily Xml
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Ministerial Staff

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:43): My question is to the Premier. Now that the Premier has had four weeks to consider the comments made by Mr Bruce Lander in his annual report regarding ministerial staff inappropriately using personal email accounts to conduct government business, will the Premier confirm whether or not he has instructed his staff to surrender any relevant emails and directed them to cease this practice, if they are currently doing so?

The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Justice Reform, Minister for Planning, Minister for Housing and Urban Development, Minister for Industrial Relations) (14:43): The situation in respect of Commissioner Lander's report is that the government is progressively working its way through all of the recommendations in that report. Most of them have already been attended to. The two that the honourable member refers to are ones that I am presently working on in conjunction with officers of my department and in consultation with Commissioner Lander, and I intend providing the Premier with advice about those matters so that he might issue appropriate directions. That, I expect, will be done soon, but it is something we are just working on now. But I want to say this and make it very clear—

Mr Pisoni interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Unley is warned for the second time.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I want to make this very clear: the government—

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The Treasurer is warned for the second time.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: The government does not endorse the use of private emails by staff members—and I include in this, incidentally, opposition staff members—to make sure that material is not appearing in the public domain or on an official record, if that it is indeed the purpose of some of these things. Secondly, we certainly do not endorse, and have never endorsed, the idea of people masquerading in a way which is not transparently absurd on Twitter, particularly if those individuals are making derogatory, defamatory or hurtful comments about other people. That is not acceptable, and even though the Premier has not yet seen my advice, I say: Premier, I will be advising you along those lines. I hope you don't mind me telling you this in front of them—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I will be saying too, Mr Premier, that I think we should make a very clear statement to everybody concerned that these things are just not acceptable, and that it is not condoned, and we will not support, encourage or condone people who do these things. We are very clear on where we are going. If—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: We agree on that, don't we?

The Hon. J.W. Weatherill: Yes.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: We agreed on it! We have agreed on it. Nobody here disagrees with any of this; we are all of the same mind. The matter is really resolved, but the actual implementation of that by way of an official edict or some form of instrument, or whatever it might be, is the matter about which we are presently seeking advice.

The SPEAKER: Supplementary, deputy leader, who is on two warnings.

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