Dr WOODRUFF (Franklin – Leader of the Greens) – Honourable Speaker, I seek leave to move a motion without notice for the purpose of moving the suspension of Standing Orders to debate the following motion:
That the House refers the Premier, the Honourable Jeremy Rockliff MP, to the Privileges and Conduct Committee to investigate and report upon whether he deliberately lied to Tasmanians about his mandatory pre‑commitment card during the 2024 election and whether or not this is a breach of the Code of Conduct contained in the Standing Orders of the House of Assembly.
It is obviously a serious matter after the debate that we have just had and the Greens have taken on board the range of speakers who have made comments about our motion of no confidence in the Premier’s motion being overreaching. We do not believe it was and we believe our statements are grounded in fact. We do not believe that you can besmirch a person by speaking the truth. We have taken on the statements that we have heard, made by members. We have taken them seriously. We accept that there is further information that members would like to have to understand the validity of the statements that we made, that we stand by. This is why we are presenting this motion.
The Deputy Premier said just before that we were using parliamentary privilege in a cowardly way. I say to him that I did go outside and say the things outside the Chamber that I said inside this Chamber. They are matters of fact and I stand by them. There is nothing cowardly about speaking the truth. There is nothing that I have said, or other Greens members have said, in here that is not based in fact and we stand by that.
We have heard the debate. There are critical questions hanging around, still unanswered about the Premier’s behaviour. We believe they relate directly to a breach of the Code of Conduct to the Statement of Values in Standing Order 2, the Statement of Values which says as members of parliament we value integrity, honesty, accessibility, accountability, fairness, transparency, courtesy, respect and understanding without harassment, victimisation or discrimination.
We believe that the Premier has not demonstrated integrity, honesty, accountability or transparency in his dealings on the matter of his honesty with Tasmanians about the mandatory precommitment, hard commitment he made at the election campaign and that he has made on subsequent occasions since the election campaign. We believe he has not been honest in response to the questions that have been asked in here, and we believe he has been deliberately deceiving Tasmanians through their elected representatives in this place.
It is a serious matter, as members have said. The no-confidence motion we brought goes to the heart of honesty, integrity and transparency in this place and, in particular, from this person. It is not just a policy switch we are talking about here. This is not about policy. This is about the Premier’s words. In the context of the debate we have just had and the questions asked by members in the House that are still hanging, we believe it is important that we now move to seek leave to have a debate to refer the Premier to Privileges. We do not think it is appropriate to have this debate at another time. I know we are all tired and that there are matters to get onto. However, this is such a huge issue for Tasmanians.
We have only to see the tenor of the comments that have been made publicly today, at the outrage and the shock at the Premier abandoning the promise to implement the mandatory pre-commitment card. We cannot wait to do this job. It is outstanding matters on the basis of the no confidence motion we brought before the parliament. That was just voted down, partly on the basis that members said they felt our evidence was not clear. That is why we want to have the debate to refer the Premier to Privileges, which we think is the appropriate manner to look at breaches of the code of conduct and matters of dishonesty.
Time expired.
