Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is a story about arrogance and improper behaviour on the part of Howard government ministers. The first story relates to an event that occurred in the chambers of the Brisbane City Council, where a dispute had occurred between sitting Councillor Gail MacPherson and the Lord Mayor of Brisbane, Mr Campbell Newman. The argument was about the status of 2.2 hectares of land at 154 Stones Road, Sunnybank Hills. During the course of the argument the Lord Mayor said the following:

I don’t care about your interjections because I am going to tell the community, and so, by the way, is the local Federal Member, Minister Gary Hardgrave, who will be doing it with those huge resources those Federal MPs have. He’s writing to everybody telling about the porkies you’ve been telling.

What we have here is the Lord Mayor of the Brisbane City Council, saying that he is going to organise for a federal member of parliament not only to intervene in a local council matter but to use his mailing and printing resources in order to communicate to people what they consider Councillor MacPherson might or might not have done in relation to the protection of this land. For the record, Councillor MacPherson very much wants that land protected, and she is succeeding in having it retained as densely vegetated land rather than it being sold off. So good on Councillor MacPherson for doing the right thing.

When a government has been in office for more than 10 years it loses perspective on right or wrong and on propriety and impropriety, and here we have a councillor being attacked not only by a Lord Mayor in a council arena but by a Lord Mayor saying that he will instruct a federal member to use the resources of the federal member’s office to contact people in the local area to help enlighten them, as far as the Lord Mayor is concerned, as to what Councillor Gail MacPherson may or may not have been doing.

Obviously this is a thoroughly inappropriate action on the part of both the Lord Mayor and the member for Moreton. The member for Moreton has form on this: he is always getting involved in local council issues, in disputes between councillors of the Labor persuasion and of the coalition persuasion, and, in so doing, seems to be oblivious to any sort of propriety that could be expected of him in the disbursement of—and I quote the Lord Mayor again—‘the huge resources those federal MPs have’. The Lord Mayor went on in this same council exchange to say:

Mr Chairman, Minister Hardgrave, the local federal member, will write to everybody about the porkies you have said in here today and I will too, Mr Chairman.

Again, for the record, Councillor MacPherson has not only done nothing wrong; she has absolutely ensured that that land is protected. The minister should pull his head in and use his office resources properly instead of improperly—which he obviously is doing at the behest of the Lord Mayor of Brisbane.

The second example of this sort of arrogance and impropriety was raised in the parliament today when the member for Swan asked the Minister for Education, Science and Training why he was the last to know—and a Liberal candidate was told beforehand—about the success of schools in the electorate of Swan in receiving funding allocations under the Investing in Our Schools program. Rather than responding to that question by saying that she would look into it, that there may have been some sort of administrative error or that perhaps someone had jumped the gun, the minister said:

This is a typically self-indulgent question ...

In other words, she was very happy to see this sort of activity going on, whether she did it personally or authorised someone else to do it. Again, that is improper behaviour, particularly as the candidate runs an air-conditioning business, potentially a massive conflict of interest. I would hope and expect, as would the member for Swan, that this businessman, considering the business that he is in, does not start to be awarded contracts for the Investing in Our Schools program. But how would we know? This government has lost all sense of perspective of right and wrong and propriety and impropriety. It is an indication of a government that has been here for too long. (Time expired)