Personal Explanations — Question No. 3 to Minister, 2 November—Authentication

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I have just received in my tray a letter from the Speaker of the House—and my point of order concerns putting the record straight—relating to a breach of privilege allegation that the Hon George Hawkins tried to bring against me on a matter concerning misrepresentation of an issue in the House. The issue relates to a question I asked in the House last week in which I quoted something from, specifically, the May edition of the Police News.

💬 Lindsay Tisch: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

I am in a point of order.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): I say to Ron Mark that what I am hearing is more in the nature of a personal explanation. He is quite free to seek leave to make that personal explanation if he wishes, but what he is saying is not a point of order at this stage.

Before I do that, can I just read out specifically what the letter said; I will then be guided by your ruling based on the content of that letter. “While I have determined that no question of a breach of privilege is involved in this case, it is, of course, incumbent on any member who feels that he or she might have given inaccurate information to the House to clear the matter up.”

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): The member can do that by personal explanation. The member should seek leave to do that.

I seek leave to make a personal explanation.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Leave has been sought for that course to be followed. Is there any objection? There appears to be none.

The explanation relates to a question that I put to the Minister of Police last week. In the content of the actual primary question I quoted something and said it had come from the May edition of the Police News. The Minister in his answer commented that the quotation in fact had come from the June edition of the Police News. Not being used to the Minister being right, I took umbrage at his challenge and I challenged him in return. Subsequently, we found that, despite authentication having been done by the Clerk’s Office, there indeed had been an error between our staff, the Clerk’s Office, and the actual question being accepted and tabled in the House. So I am just seeking to say that in actual fact on this occasion the Hon George Hawkins was correct, but there was no deliberate attempt on my part to mislead the House. The question had been lodged with the Clerk of the House, and the relevant copies of the Police News had been attached to it, but, unfortunately, the authentication quoted May instead of June.