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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2018-05-29 Daily Xml
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Child Protection

Mr KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens) (15:08): My question is to the Attorney-General. Does the Attorney-General stand by her comments from earlier today that the first the government had notice of the opposition's plans for proposed new laws aimed at keeping paedophiles in gaol were media reports in The Advertiser yesterday?

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General) (15:08): I am happy to answer the question. The statement that I actually made in response to the opposition's claim that they had forwarded to me the draft bill was that that was not the case. They had not forwarded the draft bill to me on Sunday night and, indeed, I haven't had anything from the Leader of the Opposition.

What I have ascertained is that, in fact, notwithstanding that the shadow minister for Attorney-General matters for the opposition has no trouble getting in touch with my office or me, it seems that the opposition leader has trouble. What we did ascertain is that on Sunday night, when he apparently claimed that he had sent it to me, in fact he had sent a draft bill to the Attorney-General's chief executive's office and, indeed, they received it and then forwarded it down to my office on the following day.

I would say to the opposition that if it would like to forward material to me I do have an email address, and to the Leader of the Opposition (or, indeed, any of those covering Attorney-General’s matters—even the member for West Torrens if you stray into this area at any time), I am happy for you to have my mobile telephone number as well if you haven't got it already.

Certainly the former attorney-general had my telephone number and I had his, and we were able to successfully communicate, and I am pleased to say I am able to regularly communicate with the Hon. Kyam Maher and his office. In fact, the first I had notice of this bill as a consequence of this forwarding of the material was in fact from the Hon. Kyam Maher's office who forwarded it yesterday afternoon. In fact, he didn't forward to me what was forwarded the night before: he forwarded me draft 2, which indicated that there had been some amendments. When we went to look at what was forwarded to us, it had actually been changed. We were on to draft 2 at this point, which we are happy to receive and obviously consider, and it is as amateur as I said it was yesterday.

The SPEAKER: The member for West Torrens.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER Order!

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