In the Legislative Council today, the Government quietly killed off Lara Gidding’s major law reform policy for a Charter of Rights.  Long-time anti-Charter protagonist and Leader of the Government in the Legislative Council, Doug Parkinson, appeared to take great pleasure in all but declaring the Charter of Rights dead.

When Lara Giddings was Attorney-General, one of her flagship reforms was going to be a Charter of Rights. It highlighted just how out of touch she was at the time – when people were losing their jobs and the cost of living was soaring, the soon-to-be Premier was talking about a legislated Charter of Rights that would add a costly new layer of bureaucracy and have very little positive impact on the majority of Tasmanians.

If the current Attorney-General, Brian Wightman, is looking for some practical law reforms that the community actually wants, he should look at appointing a representative of victims of crime to the parole board, stronger penalties for people who assault emergency workers and getting tough on hate crimes.

Vanessa Goodwin is Shadow Attorney General

Mr FERGUSON (Bass) – Mr Speaker, it has been a long day, it has been an important debate and there have been many contributors to it. It will be quite impossible to attempt to give a broad canvas of all the perspectives and things that have been said. A lot of nonsensical statements have been made by the Government and the Greens members in defence of a member that we believe should go. It was around October of last year that the Liberals, under slightly different circumstances but no less troubling than we are facing today, moved our first motion of no confidence in the Minister for Children. At that time the Government vigorously defended their member as one of their own as you would expect them to do, and at that time as well, despite clear matters that were in the public interest and demonstrated that the minister was not competent to do the job, the Greens acquiesced to their Labor masters. We are witnessing the same thing occurring today.

The Labor Party, quite naturally as you would expect, are rallying around their own, they have a lot to say about what a class person the Minister for Children is and it is fair enough that they would do that. It does not mean I agree; I do not. I will reflect on that because it is important for me to say yes, the Minister for Children by the name of Lin Thorp is a good person, of course she cares, of course she does. I could not agree more with the Minister for Human Services, Ms O’Connor, who made similar comments of her colleague and indeed reflected in the same way on all members of this House saying that of course we are concerned for children and decency and getting good outcomes.

Mr McKim – Except for me, according to your Leader.

Mr FERGUSON – I am reflecting on what I have heard. I want to say that it is not right that you defend your minister by talking about what a nice person she is or what kind of heart you think she has. These sort of statements have not actually in any way countered the allegation that the Opposition has been making about the Minister for Children.

My Leader yesterday sought to move a vote of no confidence in the Minster for Children in terms that he outlined to the House, but the Government blocked the opportunity for a motion on such an important matter to even be debated yesterday when it ought to have been debated. Yesterday, to their credit, the Greens, in keeping with what they described as being their longstanding view that matters of confidence ought immediately to be brought on, at least attempted – or it looked as if they attempted – to give it shot. But of course the Labor Party prevented the opportunity for that debate to be heard. They refused to take the opportunity to defend and protect their minister.

It was made worse than that because we could sense that the Greens had something of an appetite to support the no-confidence motion. They will inevitably deny that now but we sensed it at the time. We know that the Greens were agonising over what they should do. We know that they were unhappy with the performance of the Minister for Children, specifically with regard to her publicly revealing information that she obtained, which was confidential information, purely in her role as minister. If she were not the minister she could not have known the substance of the material that she released. It was the Greens who were listening very carefully when it was my colleague in Lyons, Mr Hidding, who took to the stand in arguing for a suspension of standing orders that the Premier dropped a clanger. The Leader of the Greens went white. Lara Giddings, the Premier, her face drained as well. I think they realised that suddenly they had created a crisis, because the Premier made a clear statement through the Chair or by interjection across to her Green colleagues and the statement was ‘Support this no-confidence motion that is proposed by the Liberal Opposition at your peril’. Because she said it would not be a motion of no confidence in the minister, it would be a motion of no confidence in the Government to which the Greens belonged. She even said here in the Chamber that if that motion were to succeed we would be having an election. We would be in an election campaign. How about that?

The Greens must have had a sleepless night last night. We know that they had late-night meetings. We know they had early morning meetings. They have been pushed into a corner by the Premier who has to defend her minister. She has used a scurrilous little device to defend her minister.

She has turned it into a defence of the Government to which the Greens are implicitly members of. So she has put a price: if the Greens were to support this motion yesterday or today they would lose their ministries; the coalition would be over and we would be going to an election campaign.

That was the position the Premier put the Greens in. The substance of this motion is not just about the minister, who we know in the court of public opinion and in the opinion of at least 15 members of this House breached the code of conduct specifically in revealing confidential details about a State government employment process which she obtained during the course of her official duties.

Why she did it is a very important ingredient in this debate. It was the Attorney-General who is entering the Chamber now who in his contribution volunteered that he had been door-knocking for his friend and colleague in the Rumney campaign – #therumneys. He said that one door that he went to said that a fellow offered that a lot of opportunistic politics were going on. You are damn right they are. It was the Minister for Children who was using the opportunistic politics, because she tried to slam-dunk her opponent. She tried to slam-dunk her opponent because she could not countenance the fact that she is being challenged by a man with a lifetime of career of service to young people and their welfare and that he questioned her integrity last year and her performance as a minister. He had his name on the document that was later the substance of so much debate in this place and so much public opinion – a document that claimed that she was failing Tasmania’s children, irrespective of what she would like to do as a minister. The fact is that she was failing then, as she is now. It is important to know, and I do not think it is lost on anyone in here, that it was less than one week after Mr Mason announced that he would be a candidate in the #therumneys election campaign that she then brought that information to light.

Mr O’Byrne – You’re not on Twitter now, mate.

Mr FERGUSON – It was a week – less than a week. So the Attorney-General who has now left the Chamber, makes a brag of something that he heard on the streets of Rumney where a person said to him that there was a lot of opportunistic politics going on. You are damn right there is. It was the minister who was being opportunistic. She thought she had the former children’s commissioner. The problem for her, though, was not only did she break the rules from the code of conduct, not only did she use confidential information which she ought to have kept confidential, ought to have kept secret, she also chose to use it because she thought it would advance her personally. She felt that it would be a strategy that would assist her in her election campaign. It is funny to hear people on the government side claiming that it is now the Opposition being opportunistic about wanting to use the Rumney election campaign in raising these issues. We are entitled to express our lack of confidence in the minister and, frankly, we are the Opposition. What did you expect us to do? We do not have confidence in the Government. From the day of the last election we were not confident in the Government. We are the Opposition so do not expect us to sign up to your ridiculous amendment, Mr McKim, which expresses confidence in the Government; you ought to know better than that. We know what has happened to you. You have been had, and as has been revealed already by my colleagues you have signed up to something and you did not know that the Premier would pull the trigger on you. You have signed up to something just one year ago and you are now not entitled to vote for an opposition motion that speaks of confidence in this Government, because you cannot. In doing so you will end the Government and you will be responsible for calling an election, because you would have to simultaneously resign your commission.

Anyway, if the Minister for Children is so capable and competent as we have heard, if she is such an experienced performer as a minister, and she has been a minister since late 2008, if all of those things are true then it must have been a calculated move by her. I have heard silly little statements from people saying that the Liberals have not made the case. The minister made the case for us in respect of point (a). The timing of the release of those details is absolutely about motive and the minister has absolutely not made a mistake.

Yesterday, Mr McKim, the Leader of the Greens, described her transgression as ‘a crime’. He was being rhetorical but he said the punishment should fit the crime. That is what he said yesterday. Today he has changed his rhetoric; after a night of meetings and discussions he says the punishment should fit the mistake. This Leader of the Greens has been had. He has been bought off. He has been reminded of his promise to the Labor Party. He has been told in no uncertain terms about where he stands. What makes it quite ridiculous are statements that I have heard him make today where he springs on the Parliament an amendment to a motion dealing with confidence in a minister. In the back of his mind he knows that today it is no longer a motion about confidence in the Minister for Children because he has been told by his boss, the Premier, that it is actually a motion to do with confidence in his own Government. He is trying to wriggle his way out of this bad situation, trying to con the media, the people of Tasmania and the Green voter base into thinking that somehow this is the bloke who is going to keep the Minister for Children accountable. We know that deep down in his heart Mr McKim is not confident in the Minister for Children because he said so on the Internet.

He said on 31 March at 3.50 p.m. that the constituents of the upper House electorate of Rumney deserve better than this. They deserve a breath of fresh air. Like who? Like the Greens upper House candidate. It was at that point that he also issued a media release, ‘Thorp apology necessary. It’s gone on too long. Clear the air and put the focus back on business.’ That is what the Leader of the Tasmanian Greens had to say on that date. He expressed that he did not have confidence in his cabinet colleague; he said in fact that the constituents of Rumney deserved much better.

In the time that has passed since then we know that meetings have been had and the Greens Leader put up an amendment to our no-confidence motion, trying to water it right down. The voters will be listening and observing and taking this in through the media outlets that report it. I wonder what will be reported tomorrow. We will have to wait and see. The Greens are trying to put across some idea that they moved a vote of censure against the Minister for Children, but that is not true.

Mr McKim – It is true.

Mr FERGUSON – The minister interjects and says it is true but he is not being truthful, Mr Speaker. He did not move a motion of censure. If the Leader of the Greens really was fair dinkum, if he actually believed in his heart that the minister did not deserve to be kicked out of the ministry but if he did believe that the minister deserved to be censured, not that we know what the consequences are – just a smack on the hand – if he really believed that then what would he have done? Would he have waited until Wednesday mid-afternoon to move an amendment to a no-confidence motion? No, he would not have.

What he would have done is at 10 a.m. on Tuesday morning last, right after Prayers, he would have tabled his notice of motion that the Minister for Children be censured. He did not do that and neither did he do it this morning when he had opportunity at 10 a.m. Neither did he foreshadow during today’s debate that he might do that the next day.

Mr Speaker, I put it to you that it is quite hypocritical for the Leader of the Greens to try to interfere with a motion to do with confidence in a minister, knowing that his leader, the Premier, has put him on notice that it is no longer a vote about Lin Thorp, the Minister for Children; it is now about a motion to do with the Government he belongs to. So he comes up with this silly strategy of interfering with the Liberals’ motion, trying to imply that somehow we have now voted against it. We have not.

We voted against a watering down of the no-confidence motion. If the Leader of the Greens is fair dinkum, I will see him tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. and he will be tabling his notice of motion to be debated at the earliest opportunity.

Recently I attended a function together with members of the Lupus Association where I listened to an interesting talk related to this illness and gave support to this important cause. Lupus is an auto immune disease which affects many Tasmanians – especially women. It manifests in different ways in different people with symptoms such as rheumatoid arthritis, skin problems and blood clotting.

In my previous role as CEO of the Clifford Craig medical research trust I learned a great deal about the relevance of Lupus and the way that medical researchers are working hard for better understanding of the disease and better treatments to deal with it. I know from first hand experience that this work will save lives and improve quality of life for many people around the world.

I cannot let this opportunity pass by without reporting on a most wonderful serving of ginger and date slice I was served by its maker, Barbara Torrents.  It was delicious! So good in fact that I asked her for the recipe which I now pass on to you… You’ll thank me later!

In a saucepan melt 4ozs Butter 1/2 cup sugar, add 5ozs chopped dates and 2oz finely chopped glace ginger when all combined add 3cups crushed cornflakes, push into greased slice tray, put in fridge for 1/2 hour melt 1/4 cup copha, and 3 tablespoons drinking Chocalte , best kept in fridge. Enjoy!  BT

The Tasmanian Liberals will be vigorously opposing the proposal cooked up by Mr McKim and Ms Giddings for the pleasant-sounding “Charter of Rights”. We now challenge new Premier Lara Giddings to prove that she is serious about the key issues of the economy, jobs and the cost of living by dumping her anti-democratic project.

Rather than left-wing social agendas which will make no practical difference to everyday Tasmanians (and even damage our society) we believe the Government should be focussing on the critical issues of the economy, jobs and the cost of living.

While we strongly support human rights, the Labor-Green proposal is bad for Tasmania and would be a costly impost on the Tasmanian taxpayer at a time when it can least be afforded.

It will create a costly new layer of bureaucracy, hand power to unelected judges, and at the end of the day give no practical benefit to Tasmanians. Even Federal Labor promised at the 2007 election that it would bring in a federal Charter of Rights – but on investigating the proposal and consulting widely with the Australian community it dumped the idea in favour of putting a series of identified proposals through parliament.

Anyone contemplating support for a Charter of Rights need only to ask themselves the question: would a Charter of Rights have protected the 12 year old girl in state care who was prostituted to over 100 men? The answer of course is no.

Instead, we believe that scarce government resources and energy should be directed to areas where they can make a difference and there is a demonstrated need for improvement, such as more front-line services in child protection.

This week, Ms Giddings claimed that she cared about the concerns of everyday Tasmanians. Well, Ms Giddings, here is your chance to demonstrate it. Abandon your ideologically driven and flawed Charter of Rights – and instead focus scarce government resources and energy on the economy, jobs, the cost of living and core service delivery.

Even Tasmania’s Director of Public Prosecutions has torpedoed the proposed Charter of Rights due to the uncosted impact it will have on the criminal law system.  In his submission, the DPP shows that in other jurisdictions with a Charter or Bill of Rights “…the average length of criminal trials doubled, and other aspects of the criminal process, such as bail applications, became similarly prolonged…”. 

The DPP also states that due to the predicted increase in the length of criminal trials that either the number of cases dealt with by the criminal justice system will drop and backlogs would grow, or there would need to be more money spent to expand the criminal justice system to cover the extra workload.  When the Victorian Charter of Rights was implemented the Government had to employ an extra 30 lawyers just to cope with the extra workload.  The DPP also quotes from a paper by New Zealand’s General Counsel of the Crown Law Office, Mr John Pike, who states: “…there has been no proper costing of the impact of New Zealand Bill of Rights Act (roughly, it adds about 30% to overall police and trial costs) nor any empirical study as to the value of that cost in terms of rights and freedoms”.

A great summary of the arguments which kill of the enthusiasm for those advocating a charter of rights can be read here, in a 2009 speech from John Howard.

I’ve just come away from a 9 day conference hosted by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.  It has been a significant event in my term as a Tasmanian parliamentarian, so I would like to share some initial reflections and hope that some of the things I’ve learned will be of interest to my readers and supporters.

In Australia, we commemorate Remembrance Day on 11 November at 11am.  Of course, for us Aussies, while we hold Remembrance Day in great solemnity, our main day for the commemoration of those who served Australia in all conflicts is Anzac Day, April 25.  However, In Britain, I found that Remembrance Day is held on the Sunday following November 11 – which just happened to be the day I arrived in London.   I was so moved by this experience that I want to share some of it now.

It was incredible to see the number of Britons out in full force along the streets of central London.  Gathered at Hyde Park, Westminster Abbey and of course Whitehall where the main cenotaph is located,  there was a mass of blood-red poppies in every direction.  And as I would later discover, there were wreaths of poppies even in train stations, parks and other public and private venues where workers or their kin were missed.

Although Australia has lost some 100,000 servicemen in war, and that loss has significantly shaped Australian life; Britain lost vast numbers too but also bears the marks of physical destruction on its city.    

In WW2 the Germans bombed London relentlessly.  She lost countless buildings – and irreplaceable ones too. Among the most notable of these losses was the bombing of the Houses of Parliament.  Faced with a choice between losing the House of Commons (where parliament’s lower house met) or the adjacent 900 year-old Westminster Hall (aka St Stephen’s Chapel) a heroic effort was made to save the ancient hall from fire.  A tough choice, but surely the right one. 

You can’t visit London without the constant reminders of the economic hardships and lack of personal safety that this country had to endure during that terrible conflict.  And being there for Remembrance Sunday is something I will not forget.  

The plot to remember Australians lost at war; at Westminster Abbey.

I was cold, and sad, when I visited early one morning.  Lingering in the presence of this history was eerie and unsatisfying.  (See my photo of the plot of ground at Westminster Abbey in remembrance of Australian lives lost – and remembered – by local people today living in London).

The purpose of my visit was the nine-day intensive seminar hosted by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, of which I am a member.  I represented the Tasmanian Parliament at this seminar – the 5th International Parliamentary Governance Seminar.  I gathered with 60 colleagues from around the Commonwealth, to which Australia proudly belongs.  Also in attendance were four MPs from other Australian states.

For this brief blog, I will simply list the titles of the individual seminar titles I attended and am very happy to answer any questions and invite your feedback on any or all of them via this webpage.  This list is at the end of this article.

Also, I was honoured to be invited to be one of the guest presenters at this seminar owing to my experience at all three levels of government in Australia. My brief was to explain the Australian federation in terms of how well it give public ownership of matters which relate to our many regions. Needless to say, I gave Australia a positive wrap but pointed out the ways which challenging issues arise. Not the least of which is the issue of which level of government is responsible for what policy issue.

Governance is about the process of government.  Good governance is clearly what is needed to be confident in the actions of the government in order to best advance what is good for the people of a community.  Where governance practices are weak, it is likely that the government will be more interested in self-preservation at the expense of sound policy and the support of its people.

Good governance is about transparency of government decision making, accountability for the expenditure of public money, being reprimanded when failure occurs and being sure that as a voter you have the ability to regularly cast judgment and contribute to a new elected legislature.

As most Commonwealth countries have generally inherited the Westminster Parliamentary model, we share much in common with each other in terms of the above governance qualities.  However, the beauty of the Westminster model is that it is easily adapted to suit local needs, cultural needs and the size and/or wealth of the country concerned.  One size does not fit all.

Through talking with delegates from around the world, I’ve come to learn something of the incredible variety of arrangements that are out there.  Some are very satisfactory to an outsider looking in.  However, some leave much to be desired – and in those cases I felt a great deal of sympathy for the opposition MPs who have to deal with serious corruption, government control of state media, uncertainty in electoral processes and even electoral fraud.  So often these brave men and women are carrying the heavy hope of change for their nation on their shoulders, only to be consistently prevented from election under the prevailing circumstances.  

For whatever claims people make against our political system in Australia and the political parties who hold power, we are very fortunate indeed to have a robust democracy where governments truly face the prospect of losing power at the next election. We would do well to recognise that our strong democratic systems are no accident: it is part of our inheritance as Australian members of the Commonwealth which has given us such a strong tradition of stable, responsive government.

So I say thank you to the Tasmanian Parliament for providing me with the amazing opportunity to attend this intensive seminar and also thanks to the CPA UK branch for its professional planning and hosting of the event.  I am sure that the professional development of all those who attended will strengthen the important bonds between our Commonwealth brothers and sisters; as well as make a lasting positive impact on the quality of decision making and representative government around the world.

For my part, I do again pledge to work hard for the people of Tasmania – and to be worthy of the trust they have placed in me by maintaining integrity in the things I do – both the seen and unseen.