Richard Lord

Sup­port of at least three In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors was re­quired last night for pas­sage of leg­is­la­tion to val­i­date the work of the sus­pend­ed Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the Con­struc­tion Sec­tor. There was no guar­an­tee of sup­port from the Op­po­si­tion bench­es. Min­utes af­ter At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie pre­sent­ed the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry (Val­i­da­tion and Im­mu­ni­ties from Pro­ceed­ings) Bill, 2009, Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Wade Mark said sup­port for the leg­is­la­tion would be de­ter­mined fol­low­ing the Gov­ern­ment's re­sponse to three of its de­mands.

He de­mand­ed that the Gov­ern­ment:

Ta­ble the re­port of the com­mis­sion in both the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and the Sen­ate.Im­ple­ment the rec­om­men­da­tions con­tained in the re­port of the com­mis­sion/re­fer them to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) and the Com­mis­sion­er Po­lice. Based on ev­i­dence in the pub­lic do­main, take ac­tion in de­fence of the pub­lic ac­tion im­me­di­ate­ly.

Mark said based on the re­sponse of the AG to these de­mands, the Op­po­si­tion will de­ter­mine whether it will sup­port the leg­is­la­tion. Je­re­mie re­spond­ed say­ing: "On the last point with re­spect to ev­i­dence be­ing in the pub­lic do­main, I can as­sure you that the Gov­ern­ment is a re­spon­si­ble Gov­ern­ment and it is act­ing re­spon­si­bly with re­spect to what­ev­er in­for­ma­tion is in the pub­lic do­main." Mark said the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry was a "big set up" and a "gi­gan­tic con­spir­a­cy". He said the move to val­i­date the work of the com­mis­sion was a pap­pyshow.