Labor and Greens shut down debate to allow committee scrutiny into court proceedings seeking to shut down Integrity Commission investigation

Today in the ACT Legislative Assembly, every member of Labor and the Greens voted to shut down debate on a motion moved by Canberra Liberals Leader Elizabeth Lee that would allow the relevant standing committee to inquire into recent revelations that the head of the ACT Education Directorate has launched legal proceedings against the Integrity Commissioner to have an active investigation shut down.

The motion highlighted a number of questions that remain unanswered including whether the Minister for Education misled the public with false statements, how much the legal fees for Ms Haire are costing taxpayers, whether there has been a breach of the Law Officers Legal Services Directions 2023 and the impact the court action will have on the active Integrity Commission investigation.

Ms Lee said it’s disappointing but not surprising that the Labor-Greens government shut down any debate on the issue given it’s an incredibly uncomfortable subject for the Chief Minister, Deputy Chief Minister, Attorney-General and every member of the Labor-Greens government cabinet.

“The Canberra Liberals are trying to get answers on this serious issue, but the Labor-Greens government is denying us the opportunity to even move the motion. What do they have to hide?

“As if what we have already seen out of the Integrity Commission’s investigation is not bad enough, we now have the incredible situation where a key party to this investigation has been granted ACT taxpayer money to try and stop the Integrity Commissioner from continuing the investigation.

“Further to that, despite the Chief Minister and Attorney-General becoming aware of the publicly available court proceedings last year, the Education Minister and Deputy Chief Minister claims she knew nothing about it and went even further stating to the media the ACT government knew nothing 
about it.

“We are now in the situation where the Education Minister and Deputy Chief Minister who is at times the Acting Chief Minister, is being kept in the dark by cabinet colleagues on important information because she is an active participant in a serious corruption investigation.

“It is shameful for every member of Labor and the Greens to deliberately shut down any debate on this issue which goes to the integrity of this government,” Ms Lee concluded.

The Chief Minister also attempted to have the oppositions line of questioning shut down on the same matter during question time.