House debates

Tuesday, 19 June 2007

Personal Explanations

3:28 pm

Photo of Gavan O'ConnorGavan O'Connor (Corio, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I seek to make a personal explanation.

Photo of David HawkerDavid Hawker (Speaker) Share this | | Hansard source

Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented?

Photo of Gavan O'ConnorGavan O'Connor (Corio, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Yes, I do.

Photo of David HawkerDavid Hawker (Speaker) Share this | | Hansard source

Please proceed.

Photo of Gavan O'ConnorGavan O'Connor (Corio, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

In an article in the Geelong Advertiser on Monday, 18 June entitled ‘City council must be transparent, it can’t be a … closed shop’, the feature article writer, Mr Daryl McLure, stated:

… allegations relating to Mayor Harwood have been played up quite hypocritically by local Labor luminaries—

including me. This statement is false. I have made no public comment on the investigation by the Office of Police Integrity into the mayor in relation to the council’s decision on the Home House development.

Secondly, in the same article Mr McLure states that I should be ‘fair dinkum and push for a royal commission into police and other corruption in Victoria’, not just branch-stacking and other corrupt processes in the Victorian ALP. This statement is false. As the public record shows, I have been a strong public and party opponent of corruption and branch-stacking practices in my own party over many years and I have publicly supported the establishment of an independent corruption commission in the state of Victoria to cover corruption not only by police but by businessmen and politicians.