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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2018-10-17 Daily Xml
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Assistant Minister to the Premier

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (14:56): Thank you, Mr President. I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Assistant Minister to the Premier regarding portfolio duties.

Leave granted.

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY: The Assistant Minister to the Premier has previously advised this chamber that, owing to machinery of government changes, she was not able to establish an appropriate email address to conduct portfolio-related business until August 2018. Your adviser, Ms Haley Welch, had a Department of the Premier and Cabinet email account in use in May 2018. How is it then that the assistant minister did not have an appropriate email established until August 2018? Is the minister still using her parliamentary email, parliamentary office and parliamentary resources to conduct her portfolio-related business?

The Hon. J.S. LEE (14:56): I thank the honourable member for his many questions. I think he is pretty obsessed in many ways about my office. He could have easily knocked on my door. We could have a coffee, we'd sit down and then we could go through some of the motions, instead of wasting time in this parliament asking all these useless questions, really.

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Ms Lee, do not debate the question.

The Hon. J.S. LEE: Mr President—

The PRESIDENT: Do not debate the question; answer it.

The Hon. J.S. LEE: Thank you. My parliamentary office is like an electorate office. For example, the Minister for Education has his office in Morialta. The member for Adelaide and other members have their ministerial offices but they also have electorate offices.

The Hon. C.M. Scriven: The ministerial office is not in Morialta.

The Hon. J.S. LEE: No; I'm saying that the member for Morialta goes to his Morialta office—

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Ms Lee, through me.

The Hon. J.S. LEE: I'm looking at you, sir.

The PRESIDENT: Lucky you.

The Hon. J.S. LEE: I am.

The PRESIDENT: Please do not respond to the Hon. Ms Scriven's questions.

The Hon. J.S. LEE: My concentration is right on you. I'm looking right at you, sir. You are a very distinguished President.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Flattery will get you nowhere. Let's go on to questions.

The Hon. J.S. LEE: Mr President, as I was explaining, the member for Morialta has his electorate office in Morialta but he also has his ministerial office. I have my office here in parliament as my electorate office. As constituents come in, whether it is a ministerial inquiry or constituent inquiry, I'm allowed to have a meeting wherever I choose or wherever the constituency wants to have the meeting. There is not an issue there.

In terms of parliamentary email, does it really, really, really matter? Constituents sometimes get things mixed up. They still write to me on my parliamentary email; I then direct that to my ministerial adviser in the Department of the Premier and Cabinet, and duties are handled accordingly. So—

The Hon. J.M.A. Lensink: I do exactly the same thing.

The Hon. J.S. LEE: Thank you.

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Wortley, don't disappoint me. Make it tight.

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