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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-02-20 Daily Xml
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LABOR PARTY

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (15:26): With one year to go to the election, what we are seeing is Premier Weatherill assembling his very own dirty tricks unit here at Parliament House. We all remember that in March 2010, at the last election, we saw one of the most disgraceful dirty tricks in recent South Australian political history. We saw the dodgy how-to-vote cards in marginal seats like Mawson, with dodgy T-shirts saying 'put your family first' with Family First colours on them as well.

We note that all the key players in that dodgy practice—in Mawson and other marginal seats—have recently received promotions. We see that Mr Michael Brown, who had an inglorious period as chief executive of Griffins Lawyers, has just recently been appointed as ministerial adviser for police and road safety in minister O'Brien's office on over $100,000 a year. Mr Brown, of course, was the Labor identity, or state secretary, who defended the practice and denied that it was misleading: 'Not at all. I take full responsibility. I authorised it and I was aware of it.' He described it as being part of normal campaigning. At one stage he indicated a willingness to continue the practice.

Then, of course, we saw the Hon. Mr Maher promoted to this place. In his very first interview in the Sunday Mail he came across as proud of his involvement in the dodgy documents, or the dodgy how-to vote—

The Hon. K.J. Maher: Dodgy documents?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: Well, maybe dodgy documents as well. We will talk about that. The dodgy how-to-vote cards. Mr Maher boasted to political reporter Daniel Wills, and Mr Wills reported, 'Mr Maher also has been at the hard edge of political campaigning and was part of the head office leadership team which produced the dodgy how-to-vote cards used at the 2010 state election.' He was so proud of his involvement that clearly he was happy to discuss it with Daniel Wills, the political reporter doing his profile piece as he was being promoted to this council.

Today we saw him together with minister Hunter—a double act—attempting to shut down the Hon. Kelly Vincent during question time and, in the minister's case, attempting to bully, belittle and patronise the Hon. Kelly Vincent. Finally, of course, we see the member for Mawson, Mr Bignell, being promoted in recent times to the Weatherill ministry.

So, there is no doubting that the three key movers and shakers in the dodgy how-to-vote practice in Mawson—Mr Brown, Mr Maher and Mr Bignell—have all now been promoted and we now have them all reunited as part of Premier Weatherill's 'dirty tricks unit', which has now been assembled here in parliament. What we are going to see is a continuation of the dirty tricks that those three gentlemen have been involved with, and they quite proudly boast of their involvement in dodgy how-to-vote cards. They not only commit these offences, they are injudicious enough and indiscreet enough to boast about them to journalists and others about their involvement. They do not even have the good grace to let it go through to the keeper. They like to boast about it. Of course, the member's partner had other appointments under this government as well, but we will discuss that at another time.

We are going to see a continuation of these dirty tricks by this 'dirty tricks unit' and others. We will also see, I believe, a nasty personal abusive campaign from these particular people as they attack—and we have seen it already with ministers, and now the Hon. Mr Maher, trying to describe the new Leader of the Opposition firstly as Mark Latham and now Basil Fawlty. I think they will have to make up their mind firstly on their strategy as to whom they are going to try to characterise the new opposition leader as; they are struggling a bit, I think, to get anything to stick.

This is the sort of personal attack and abuse we are going to see, not only on the leader but Liberal MPs and candidates because they are very concerned about what is going to happen in March 2014.

The PRESIDENT: A member taking a point of order is not an act of bullying.

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