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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-09-07 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

Minister for Infrastructure and Transport

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens) (15:25): It is always amazing what falls in someone's letterbox. It is always amazing what we find out. But what has been consistent is the allegations made about a certain member's behaviour. Whether it is constituents in his electorate complaining about an infrastructure project they are unhappy about, there are allegations of bullying and harassment. Whether it is volunteer sporting organisations that wish to see the member and talk to him about grants or changes to grants, there are accusations of bullying and intimidation.

Now those accusations of bullying and intimidation have grown into accusations of falsifying time sheets. That event, that allegation, if proven, will have serious consequences not just for the minister but for the government. The opposition does not raise these allegations lightly. We have done our research. We have had this information for a while and have been preparing for this question time for a number of weeks.

The Minister for Infrastructure and Transport is accused of a number of things: he is accused of bullying and intimidating; he is accused of falsifying time sheets. I ask members to reflect on the first question I asked the minister. The first question I asked him was: have you ever employed Tui Comas? The reaction on his face was as if, 'Gee, who's that?' The next question was: is Tui Comas married to your wife's brother? Yes. If my sister-in-law worked in my office, I think I would remember that.

But of course what we have now is accusations of mediation being implemented by the Department of Treasury and Finance Electorate Services on the conduct of the minister. My understanding is that at mediation the minister agreed to alter his behaviour because of the mediation. He did not. I also understand that time sheets were falsified. That is the allegation. The minister has denied that in this parliament.

I suspect there may be other bodies interested in asking him similar questions, where he will not have the Minister for Energy and Mining or a Speaker or anyone else to shield him from answering those questions under what I think is quite an obscure ruling, which says that ministers are not responsible for their actions to the House of Assembly. However, I will wait for the precedence—which other parliament in the commonwealth allows a minister not to answer questions about their own conduct.

I have to say that in this position we are given a lot of public trust. Our global allowances are substantial. There are people in this parliament who have been forced to resign from their political parties who are facing accusations for the same thing the minister has been accused of. There was an unbelievable defence of the minister, yet I have not seen that same defence of the other members who are now sitting on the crossbench. I would ask those members to ponder the difference in treatment from a minister to a backbencher who is basically facing the same accusations. I suppose it depends on who you know rather than what you know.

If these allegations are proven, the minister will have to resign. The minister will have to answer to these accusations and, hopefully, they will be either disproven or proven and the parliament will know. But the idea that this parliament can be censured in any way in asking ministers of the Crown questions about their conduct in their electorate offices—well, then we have no role as an opposition. The idea that we cannot ask a minister if they physically intimidated a member of their staff—this is not just bullying and harassment; this is now to the level of physical intimidation. If those allegations are true, that member does not belong in this house, let alone in the ministry.

I have heard from a number of members of his constituency about behaviour that I think is appalling, absolutely appalling. What does the Premier do? The Premier tries to deflect by attacking other people—which is typical of his conduct—rather than actually dealing with the substance of the argument. Are these allegations true? What will the Premier do about these allegations? Will he now launch an independent investigation? I think the answer to all those questions is that he will do nothing.

The Premier must launch an independent investigation. He must refer this for independent investigation—and not by someone who answers to the Premier but by an independent statutory officer who has the power to call for evidence and compel witnesses to give evidence as public officers. Until that occurs, we will never get to the truth of what happened in the Mitchell electorate office.

Time expired.

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