House debates

Monday, 27 March 2006

Personal Explanations

4:11 pm

Photo of Alex SomlyayAlex Somlyay (Fairfax, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I wish to make a personal explanation.

Photo of Harry JenkinsHarry Jenkins (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented?

Photo of Alex SomlyayAlex Somlyay (Fairfax, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I do.

Photo of Harry JenkinsHarry Jenkins (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Please proceed.

Photo of Alex SomlyayAlex Somlyay (Fairfax, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

On Wednesday, 15 March the Minister for Health and Ageing held a press conference in my electorate, where a Channel 7 reporter, Samille Muirhead, asked the minister and me why the government had cut the funding for the Sunshine Coast Hear and Say Centre. The minister and I denied any knowledge of such funding cuts. The journalist obviously got the question wrong, because the Channel 7 news broadcast that evening fraudulently changed the question to read ‘the Sunshine Coast Children’s Therapy Centre’, not ‘the Hear and Say Centre’. There have been no funding cuts for either the Sunshine Coast Hear and Say Centre or the Sunshine Coast Children’s Therapy Centre. I intend to pursue this fraudulent behaviour by Channel 7 with the appropriate broadcasting regulator.