Embattled Deputy Premier Kevin Foley is facing new claims he has breached the Ministerial Code of Conduct.
The claim, made by the Opposition’s Joint Party Secretary John Dawkins, comes during a horror week for the Treasurer in which he was forced to apologise for misleading parliament six times.
“In answering the questions put to him on 12, 13, 25 and 26 May, and in his ministerial statements of 25 and 27 May, the house has been misled,” speaker Lyn Breuer ruled. “The house is entitled to have an expectation that as an experienced minister he should know better.”
The fresh allegations will require further explanation by the Treasurer and the Premier, Mr Dawkins said.
The Ministerial Code of Conduct is explicit. “In the discharge of his or her public duties, a minister shall not dishonestly or wantonly and recklessly attack the reputation of any other person,” it states.
Mr Foley is on record as having described respected Channel Seven cameraman Jamie Holland and others as “a bunch of feral protestors who put the safety of our police officers in peril”.
Mr Holland was covering a demonstration at the Beverley uranium mine when he was arrested for alleged trespass. He joined the demonstrators in suing the government and was awarded a huge extra compensation payment because of Mr Foley’s intemperate outburst.
Mr Foley’s remarks, together with those of Police Minister Michael Wright, were scathingly criticised by Supreme Court Judge Tim Anderson.
“My findings indicate that the comments made by Mr Foley were both unreasonable and antagonistic when made in the circumstances of aborting the planned mediation. These statements are relevant to the assessment of exemplary damages. The comments are one-sided and do not acknowledge the extreme way in which the police dealt with protesters and the circumstances of their detention,” Justice Anderson found after a 42-day trial.
“It is my view that both ministers, in making these statements, have acted with a high-handed and contumelious disregard of the plaintiffs as citizens of the state with a right to protest, and with the right to be treated according to law if they did protest. As I have found, they were not treated according to law.”
For damages, aggravated damages, exemplary damages and interest on damages, Justice Anderson awarded the plaintiffs a combined total of $724,000. Legal costs in the case could exceed $4 million. Mr Holland and the others were awarded $15,000 each as compensation for Mr Foley and Mr Wright’s remarks.
“His Honour has said the Treasurer could not have honestly believed what he was saying because of the existence of the Police Complaints Authority report, and His Honour took the unusual step of awarding exemplary damages – damages which are awarded to punish the defendant for conscious wrong-doing in contumelious disregard of another’s rights,” Mr Dawkins said.
“Breaching the Ministerial Conduct Code alone is enough to sack a Minister. When it is compounded by misleading the public and the parliament in relation to the Adelaide oval blowout, Mr Rann should do the honourable thing and sack the Treasurer.”
