House debates Personal Explanations

Monday, 2 June 2014 House of Representatives

Brendan O'Connor

Brendan O'Connor Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations

3:09 pm

I seek leave to make a personal explanation.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop Speaker

Does the member claim to have been misrepresented?

Brendan O'Connor

Brendan O'Connor Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations

I do.

Leave granted.

In an article published in the Weekend Australian on Saturday entitled 'O'Connor silent on tugboats' it was reported that I was not willing to comment upon the Port Hedland dispute. This was a complete misrepresentation of my reply to a question at the AMMA conference in Perth on Friday. In fact, in reply to the question I said:

It is incumbent on parties to sit down and resolve differences.

And I added:

We'd rather see resolution rather than any conflict.