Member for Epping

MEMBER FOR EPPING

Mr DAVID CAMPBELL (Keira—Minister for Police, and Minister for the Illawarra) [3.22 p.m.]: I move:
That this House:
(1) deplores the conduct of the member for Epping in his dealings with Dr Patrick Power regarding child pornographic material found on Dr Power's computer; and

(2) censures the member for Epping for misuse of his position as a member of the Legislative Assembly by misleading the House and breaching the code of conduct in its requirements for honesty and integrity during his personal explanation on 10 May 2007 in relation to events that took place surrounding the discovery of child pornographic material found on Dr Power's computer.
I move this motion to censure the member for Epping for deliberately misleading the House about why he notified Dr Power before notifying the police. When we last sat in this place, the member for Epping offered a personal explanation on a matter of grave importance. The member, under fire for his part in notifying Dr Patrick Power of child pornography allegations against him before notifying police, sought to explain himself. We welcomed that move at the time because the Leader of the Opposition had not been able to muster the ticker to deal with this serious issue plaguing his shadow Attorney General. However, the member for Epping thinks he is too smart by half, just like he did when he was having late-night phone calls with the member for Vaucluse and Bill Heffernan. The member has again treated his former office, the Parliament and the people of New South Wales with utter contempt.
The member misled the House in his personal explanation on 10 May 2007. Unable to give a credible reason for notifying a mate that he had been caught with child pornography before telling police, the member for Epping tried to cover it up. His personal explanation raised many more questions than it answered. The member was very clear about why he had spoken to Power before calling in the police: he claimed it was because of his role as a manager. In this Chamber on 10 May the member said:
A matter we wished to clarify was whether he would claim he had possession of this material for the purpose of a case in which he was briefed.
He later said:
Unless he had a credible explanation, we needed him to stand down?
He then went on to say:
Accordingly, it was agreed that if no credible explanation were given I would request him to stand down voluntarily.

Those were his words, which can be found in Hansard . He claims he brought Power in to ask him whether the pictures related to a case he was working on. However, that is not how it really happened. We know the true story because the Director of Public Prosecutions, Nicholas Cowdery, has provided the notes that the member for Epping made on that day.
With the concurrence of the House I table a copy of a memorandum to the Director of Public Prosecutions from Greg Smith, SC, Deputy Director, regarding Patrick Power, dated 4 July 2006. The member's notes tell a very different story of what occurred in his chambers on 4 July 2006. First, there is no mention in the notes of seeking some sort of work related explanation from Dr Power about why he had the material. To the contrary, the member for Epping's notes show he knew it was unlikely that the material was work related before he spoke to Dr Power. The notes also clearly show that the member knew the police would need to be involved. That shows, first, that he knew it was not a work issue and, secondly, that he should already have contacted the police rather than call in Dr Power.
In a further unravelling of the statements made in the House by the member for Epping, we can reveal that before Dr Power was even asked to come into the office, the former Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions, now sitting opposite, consulted the Crimes Act to determine which defences Dr Power could use to fight the allegation. Let us remember that the member for Epping said that he was acting as a manager and that he called in Dr Power to seek an explanation to establish whether the images had been kept for a case. However, we now have the very different and utterly extraordinary situation that the former Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions was sitting in his office reading through the Crimes Act to determine what defences were available for a colleague and friend caught red-handed with child pornography.
The notes go on to say that during that process—when he could have been calling the police—the member for Epping identified the relevant section of the Act relating to possession of child pornography and noted that regardless of any excuse offered by Dr Power there were statutory defences that did not seem likely to apply. The member's notes state that he insisted that Power's PC, hard drive and any copy that had been made of the data be brought to his chambers for safe-keeping because he expected that the police would become involved in an investigation of the material. Yet he still did not call the police; he called Power. This appalling series of events, conducted by an allegedly professional prosecutor, continued. His notes go on to describe the point at which he contacted a man who by this stage should have been reported to the police and all evidence handed over. The notes state:
It was also agreed that I would try to contact Patrick and request that he come to my chambers. There I was to advise him of what had been found on his PC, that he was not asked to comment, but invited to stand down from his position on full pay pending the outcome of a Police investigation.
The memo further states:
He—
referring to Power—
arrived at about 6 p.m. and ? I then told him what had been found, asking him not to comment. I referred to s.91H of the Crimes Act, which made it an offence to possess child pornography without a reasonable excuse.

That is what he told Power. There were no questions on work-related pornography, no questions on child abuse cases, and no discussion on whether this was all a mistake. I will read it again:

I then told him what had been found, asking him not to comment.
It is a very different situation to what the member for Epping told the Parliament on 10 May, when he said:

It was agreed that if no credible explanation were given I would request him to stand down.
Quite apart from his appalling actions on the day, the member for Epping has blatantly misled the House. He stood in this Chamber making statements he knew to be false, simply trying to dig himself out of a hole. The member for Epping told this House the main reason for communicating with Power before the police was that he thought the material was work related. However, his memo tells us the truth: that in fact he did not think the material was work related; that he consulted the Crimes Act and determined there was no lawful excuse that would prevent charges being laid; that he called in Dr Power from home, specifically told him not to comment, and then send him back home; that he called police after Power had already left the building, and to this day believes there was no consequence of that delay.
The member for Epping is clearly more concerned about his own reputation than about matters of child protection and justice. It is shocking that in his personal explanation to the Parliament he claimed he did not believe police would have acted any more quickly if they had been told before Dr Power. I know quite a few people who would disagree with that— The member for Epping is clearly more concerned about his own reputation than about matters of child protection and justice. It is shocking that in his personal explanation to the Parliament he claimed he did not believe police would have acted any more quickly if they had been told before Dr Power. I know quite a few people who would disagree with that—15,000 police officers to start with. Deputy Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione made that point very clear when commenting on this matter last year. Mr Scipione told the Daily Telegraph on 26 September last year:
Yes. We would like to be advised first ? the sooner the better. If we are to take it out of the employer/employee relationship ? in terms of any potential crime, we like to be advised first.
Asked whether that also applied to the workplace, Mr Scipione replied, "Correct." The member for Epping, after just two days in this Chamber, misled the House. It is now time for the Leader of the Opposition to take action, to stand up to the darling of the extremist Right that has been installed in Epping, and take action against a man who is not fit for the mantle of shadow Attorney General. And that is really saying something, after the last one they had!

Mr GREG SMITH (Epping) [3.32 p.m.]: The reason I resigned as Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions and ran for Parliament was to try to lift the standards of politics in this State. I had been exposed to a regime, mainly through the previous Attorney General, Mr Debus, and the Government here today, which in recent years had done their best to destroy the independence of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. The Minister for Police has shown that the time is long overdue for all prosecution matters that are currently run by the Police Force to be handed over to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
The Government has misused the prosecution of a man charged with a serious and vile offence of child pornography for political purposes to damage an opponent, an opponent who is a senior counsel, whom the Government did not object to appearing on its behalf about 15 times in the High Court on full-scale appeals, 10 as junior counsel and 5 as leading counsel, about 40 times on special leave applications for the Crown, about 300 times in the Court of Criminal Appeal defending convictions, raising appeals against the inadequacy of sentences, defending applications for leave to appeal, and challenging decisions of trial judges who made errors in interlocutory matters. The Government never objected to my appearing then. Indeed, after this Patrick Power matter blew up, the Attorney General of the day, Mr Debus, defended the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions because of attacks in the media and said we acted perfectly properly. By that time he had a full report.
I am sure that as people dredge through every document that has been created in this unhappy matter they will find little differences, because in no single document does one put every word. I will remind the House of what I said on the last occasion. I will quieten my voice a little now, because these are serious matters and I do not wish to give them the respectability that seems to have been accorded this shabby motion, which has been brought on for purely political purposes.
I will speak about something that really appals me. A group of people here with me today, and many others on my side of the House, went through orientation courses. We all got on well; we treated each other civilly, like friends, and I hope we can continue to do that. They have now been exposed to this Government's grubbiness. It is somewhat like the young police officer who was put into Kings Cross police force and taken to a brothel on his first day so he could be shown what was done in Kings Cross. The Government's shabbiness is a bit like that. There are people here today—I notice that one has left the Chamber—who spoke in a motion against me last year, when I was not able to reply, and said that mothers and fathers in this State would run away when they saw this man approach him because their children might be in danger. That is the standard of this Government. Someone who is now a Minister said that, and she has been promoted because of it.
Three Ministers of the Crown defamed me last year. They went on radio before the memo about this case, which Bob Debus's office had leaked to the Daily Telegraph , came out in that newspaper in instalments, day by day, for about six days so that the business of the Parliament, including question time, was dragged down with matters about me. That is what this wonderful re-elected Government stands for: it stands for smear. I have been socking it to them; I have been showing that the Government has stuffed up.
The SPEAKER: Order! The Minister was heard in silence. The same courtesy should be extended to the member for Epping.

Mr GREG SMITH: In my personal explanation I said, "? a matter we wished to clarify was whether he would claim he had possession of this material for the purpose of a case in which he was briefed". I did not mention that in my report to the Director of Public Prosecutions, because he knew it: we had discussed the matter over the telephone. I had also discussed the matter with the two officers who were with me—Mr Mark Tedeschi, QC, the Senior Crown Prosecutor, also seen by the Government as worthy to run major cases, and Mr Lou Lamprati, SC, the other Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions, also seen as worthy to represent this State in the High Court, the Court of Criminal Appeal, and all the other courts. Those officers and I looked at the law—because that is what lawyers do. The Minister for Police is not a lawyer, although he represents the Attorney General and the Minister for Justice in this Chamber. Lawyers tend to ask: Has there been an offence?
For the Minister's information, an offence under section 91H is not an offence commonly prosecuted in the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions; it is an offence commonly prosecuted by police prosecutors. The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions sometimes prosecutes such an offence, but I had never seen a child pornography prosecution in my chambers. Never had a matter concerning a child pornography prosecution been brought before me. The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions deals with more serious matters, such as rape, gang rape, and other serious offences. I do not suggest that this is not a serious matter. We looked at the law and the defences because we wanted to know whether Patrick Power was going to claim something like that. As I said, he did claim that he had been away and that other people were using his home during that time. As members will see if they read the judgment of the Chief Magistrate, Patrick Power later said to a Director of Public Prosecutions officer that he had a curiosity about this sort of material, that he had looked at it, that it was a free download, but that he did not practise that sort of behaviour in the sense of being a person who interferes with children.
On occasions I and other Director of Public Prosecutions officers have had to tender in court child pornography. Members opposite probably have not had much to do with prosecuting child pornography cases. When you prosecute such matters, you have to put in warts and all. You must put in all the material that is relevant to the case. If someone is charged with child sexual assault and pornography is found in the person's possession, that material must be presented to show that they had a guilty intent, to support the evidence of the victim. I have not come here to be pilloried day in, day out for what I have done in the past. Apparently because I was not a member of the Labor Party and I dared to nominate for Parliament I have to pay for it. I was asked to resign immediately. The member for Blue Mountains, who seems to be a very fine gentlemen and a Minister of the Crown, was not asked to resign immediately. There are other members here—

Mr Barry O'Farrell: The member for Maitland.
Mr GREG SMITH: The member for Maitland and others—all good people—were not asked to resign immediately. For political reasons, I was. It was said that I had not shown inconsistency; I had just given a bit more information. The Minister for Police raised the matter of the Independent Commission Against Corruption inquiry concerning a well-known paedophile case last August. I will not mention the man's name because he is facing charges I instituted. On a Friday afternoon on radio 2GB I was accused by the Attorney General, Bob Debus, of no billing this man.
Mr Barry O'Farrell: Was that true?
Mr GREG SMITH: No. I am entitled to take leave and I was on leave at the time the man was no billed, as Mr Debus well knew. His chief of staff and his chief press officer had been told in the previous two days, "Smith did not do it, the other deputy director did it; the director was on leave at the time." When I returned from leave the case was blowing up in the media. I think on my second day back from leave the chief of staff of the Attorney General rang me and asked me to go on the Ray Hadley show to defend the no bill or to explain it. I said I did not know enough about it; I had been on leave. The chief of staff said, "We have got to save Bob's neck." I went to ICAC—and I have detailed notes of this so it is no wonder it was not further investigated—and said it was not my role to save Bob's neck. I said that this was not threatening Bob's neck, that the Director of Public Prosecutions operates independently and we do not go on radio stations and talk about individual cases, that I did not and I would not. Less than a day later I was punished for that when Bob Debus rang up Phillip Clarke and said, "Yes, Greg Smith did no bill this fellow", and the Daily Telegraph had run a story—
Mr Brad Hazzard: A straight-out lie.
Mr GREG SMITH: It was a straight-out lie, and he did it to punish me because I was running for Parliament and it was getting close to my preselection date. This man attacked me later over this case. Having defended the office and me, once I became a candidate I was attacked by him for this. Talk about flaming twisting of words and inconsistencies by the Labor Party. Fine new members of this House are being corrupted by this crowd on the other side—even the member for Monaro, who is sitting at the back laughing.
Mr Steve Whan: Just tell us the facts.
Mr GREG SMITH: The fact is that I have acted properly and I will continue to act properly. All this has made me more determined to make sure the Labor Party loses next time and loses badly. When I was accused of all this I doorknocked 75 per cent of the electorate?I lost 12 kilos?and the people of my electorate said, "Good on you for standing up to Labor. That's great." And I did stand up to Labor: I did not back down; I did not resign; I left when I decided to, as I was entitled. All I can say is, "Boys—and girls—keep bringing it on."
The SPEAKER: Order! This is a very important matter. The member for Epping is responding to the debate and will be heard in silence.

Mr GREG SMITH: I say keep bringing it on because the people of New South Wales were fed up with the Labor Party before the election but were not prepared to go the full distance. However, they will be more and more prepared when they hear about the sort of rubbish that has been going on. None of these blokes—and women—on the other side has ever run a criminal matter, but they have experience too. I am unhappy about Milton Orkopoulos being charged with all those paedophile offences. Members opposite had to sit next to him, they had to shake his hand at functions—
Mr Paul Lynch: Was he guilty of anything?
Mr GREG SMITH: He may not be guilty. I said, "charged".
The SPEAKER: Order! I again remind members that this is an important matter. Contributions should be made through the Chair; they should not be directed across the Chamber.

Mr GREG SMITH: In my inaugural speech only a couple of weeks ago I referred to the encouragement I get from reading about Sir Thomas More and I mentioned how we have a statue outside this place of a man who was prepared to die for his beliefs, and of whom it was said he was a king's good and loyal servant but God's first. That is what I hope to live up to and I hope many members do too because we want the people of New South Wales to have respect for politicians; we want people to believe that we really do uphold the interests of the nation and particularly the State. There are many problems that are hard to fix, but we want people to see that together we are all trying to fix them. I do not harbour any personal animosity towards any member and I hope no member does towards me or any other member.
The SPEAKER: Order! I remind members of my previous rulings.

Mr PAUL LYNCH (Liverpool—Minister for Local Government, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, and Minister Assisting the Minister for Health (Mental Health)) [3.47 p.m.]: The performance of Opposition members as I came to the lectern confirms the shabbiness of their behaviour in this place. I support the motion moved by the Minister for Police. Thomas More is an interesting figure, but, unlike the member for Epping, he did not mislead Parliament. I do not argue that the member for Epping is necessarily an evil and bad man; I argue that he has been guilty of serious errors of judgment, and his guilt on that count has led him to his current predicament of having misled the House when he had been a member of it for about a week.
There is some old, useful advice that the member for Epping might have had regard to if he had done a bit more defence work and a bit less of the prosecution work he regaled us with: When you are in a hole, stop digging. He has had a track record of errors of judgment. First, he takes calls from the then Leader of the Opposition, and now member for Vaucluse, and from—heaven help us—Bill Heffernan, over the way he should run his cases. Then he has the hide to attack the Government for impugning the independence of the Director of Public Prosecutions. Indeed, he had the hide to impugn Labor for impugning the independence of the Director of Public Prosecutions when it is the Opposition that wants to subject the Director of Public Prosecutions to a parliamentary committee.
The SPEAKER: Order! I call the member for Wakehurst to order.

Mr PAUL LYNCH: There is an extraordinary element of hypocrisy in the claim from the member for Epping that it is this side of the House that is impugning the independence of the Director of Public Prosecutions. Having had those discussions with the then leader of the Opposition and Bill Heffernan, and despite the inevitable and consequent perception of the lack of independence, he will not stand down. Then we come to his monumental misjudgments over the Patrick Power case where he notified Power before he notified the police. It is that last error of judgment that has led him directly to mislead the House. The original error was so palpable and so damaging that he tried desperately to get away from it by telling the House on 10 May something that was inconsistent with the notes he took at the time and inconsistent with his previous explanation. Clearly he has not had enough experience on the defence side of the bar table. There are now two inconsistent versions. The obvious question—

The SPEAKER: Order! I call the member for Wakehurst to order for the second time.

Mr PAUL LYNCH: —is a question the Crown Prosecutor should be achingly familiar with: Which was the lie? Was the first version a lie or was the second version a lie? Was the written record true and the 10 May comments a lie or was the 10 May version the truth and his earlier comments a lie? The logical conclusion, and indeed the only credible conclusion in this case, is that the 10 May explanation is untrue. The earlier version was closer in time to the events, was written and seems inherently more believable. These are, of course, precisely the types of comments one would expect a Crown Prosecutor to make. The member for Epping should go from the frontbench. He has misled the House. He should go as shadow Attorney General. Apart from misleading the House, one wonders at the difficulties of the Opposition if someone with the track record of errors of judgment of the member for Epping can ascend to the frontbench.
Mr Greg Smith: You got there.
Mr PAUL LYNCH: Yes, and I have had the experience of being on the defence side, unlike you. That is the reason you are in trouble now. You could not avoid trying to explain your way out of trouble. You kept on talking and did not know when to be quiet. That was your problem.
The SPEAKER: Order! I call the member for Wakehurst to order for the third time.

Mr PAUL LYNCH: The Leader of the Opposition should show some ticker. He should indicate that the member for Epping should go from the frontbench; that he has enough intelligence and political perspective to get rid of him. The core to this was really seen in the presentation of the member for Epping today. He did not answer the central claim made against him by the Minister for Police. He tells the House now, as he told the House on 10 May, "We had to get an explanation from Patrick Power." However, what he said in his notes was that Power was not asked to comment but was invited to stand down. He told this House that he asked Power for an explanation. At the time he interviewed Power he made a set of notes that said he wanted no comment from Power. One cannot say that black is white. One simple question has to be answered: Which is the lie?what he said in this House on 10 May or what he said in his written notes?
Mr BARRY O'FARRELL (Ku-ring-gai—Leader of the Opposition) [3.52 p.m.]: I stand to defend the member for Epping. I will always defend members on this side when subject to these sorts of scurrilous smears from Government members. First, I refer to the contribution of the Minister for Local Government. If we are to use as suitability for sitting on the frontbench an absence of error of judgment or an absence of misleading the House, few members of Parliament who are currently Ministers would be eligible to sit on the frontbench. Indeed, the imbroglio of the Leader of the House in relation to the Cecil Hills affair would mean that he is not eligible to sit there. Two former members of this House, members representing the electorates of Wallsend and Newcastle, committed equally serious errors of judgment when notified about matters occurring in Newcastle and regions in relation to paedophilia when they did not take those matters either to their political authorities or to the police. A member of the upper House, the Hon. Helen Westwood, seems to have committed an error of judgment. She was allegedly a witness to a domestic violence assault but did not talk about it until it suited her faction to do so.
If we want to talk about errors of judgment we could talk about the Minister for Small Business and Regulatory Reform and his notorious error of judgment or the error of judgment of former Speaker Murray, who took weeks to get statements from members of this House in relation to those issues, which would have gone for criminal prosecution had the person involved not withdrawn her complaint from police. If we want to talk about the standard set by members opposite, they are low. In contrast, we have a former member of the staff of the Director of Public Prosecutions who is out there trying to do his part on behalf of the justice system. He has revealed here today some insights into the way in which members opposite seek to bully, harass and intimidate independent judicial staff across the State. Those matters ought to be of concern.
It is simply unacceptable for the Minister to come in here and read a speech that has been given to him that seeks to put the worst possible light on the memo that has been brought forward. What the Minister did not do was produce the full report that was demanded of the Director of Public Prosecutions by the Attorney General two weeks ago, demanded not because the Government wanted to learn the lessons but demanded because it wanted to make political capital, wanted to engage in the politics of smear against the member for Epping. Where is the full report of the Director of Public Prosecutions? Where is the report that might suggest that there was some wrongdoing by the then Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions or those with whom he acted in concert on this affair?
I said two weeks ago that if the Government were serious about trying to get to the bottom of this affair it would have also asked for a report from the Commissioner of Police. What concerns the public most of all were delays in the police attending the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and delays in which they executed a search warrant at the home of Dr Patrick Power. Members opposite are not interested in that. They are not interested in learning the lessons of this so that if, God forbid, it should happen again we do not see those sorts of delays occur and we do not see the possible destruction of evidence. I say "the possible destruction of evidence" because on the last sitting day the Minister claimed in this Chamber that evidence had been destroyed. If members want to talk about misleading this House, the Minister did.
This memo, which I have now read, supports the contentions made by the member for Epping on 10 May. It talks about acting in concert with Mr Tedeschi and Mr Lamprati. It talks about consulting the Crimes Act. We know that Labor reacts without thinking on most occasions. The fact that a manager, as the then Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions was, would sit down and think beforehand with his colleagues—because the three colleagues consulted the Act to see what the possible ramifications of the interview were, I assume to ensure with due diligence that there was no way in which this matter would be mishandled—is now apparently an offence under public administration in New South Wales. They ought to get a star for it, Minister; that is the way senior public servants should operate.
The memo confirms that the information found in the office was kept under lock and key; it confirms that he was consulting with his boss, the Director of Public Prosecutions. The memo confirms that the Director of Public Prosecutions was unable to get in touch with the Attorney General. The memo confirms that he called Patrick Power to the office and that he, with Mr Tedeschi and Mr Lamprati, interviewed Mr Power. The memo confirms the delays with which the police handled this affair. The only case to be answered, as far as I am concerned, is the fact that in the second week of sittings this Government seeks to lower the standards of this House, standards that should go to substance and principles, not personalities and these sorts of grubby smears. [ Time expired.]
Ms REBA MEAGHER (Cabramatta—Minister for Health) [3.57 p.m.]: I am appalled at the self-serving proselytising by the member for Epping that somehow as a lawyer and as a man of religion he should be above the rigours of public scrutiny, that somehow he should be above the scrutiny of public speaking. I think he is learning the hard way that, in fact, everybody in this Chamber has his or her affairs and conduct prior to entering Parliament scrutinised in the public interest. It is not merely this side of the House that is concerned by the conduct of the member for Epping. There is disquiet on the Opposition benches as well. It was not so long ago that the member for Terrigal raised his concerns in the Sun-Herald when he said:
There is an air of mystery about this ? The DPP needs to tell us more.
There is an air of mystery about this but we are slowly getting to the bottom of it. Indeed, the words of the member for Epping demonstrate that there is an inconsistency. They are his words, he wrote the memo. There is only one that question remains. What is the Leader of the Opposition going to do about it? What is he going to do with a shadow Attorney General who does not follow the most basic rules of proper process when a mate and colleague is caught with child pornography? This is the test that the Leader of the Opposition must answer. The member for Epping quite rightly pointed out, "I have never prosecuted child sex crimes." I have been the Minister for Community Services. Whilst the member for Epping told this Chamber that to a lawyer's mind child sex crimes are not the most serious crimes—that is what he just said—to every fair-minded person in this community they are most abhorrent crimes.

Mr Barry O'Farrell: Point of order: The Minister is misrepresenting the member for Epping, who talked about child pornography, not child sexual acts.
The SPEAKER: Order! There is no point of order.
Ms REBA MEAGHER: I am surprised by that contribution from the Leader of the Opposition because child pornography is not a victimless crime. There are serious ramifications for those children.
Mr Barry O'Farrell: Point of order: The Minister said that the member for Epping had not prosecuted child sex acts. The member for Epping said that he had not prosecuted child pornography acts. The Minister should get the facts right.
The SPEAKER: Order! The Minister for Health has the call.

Ms REBA MEAGHER: The member for Epping has an unenviable choice. He has either lied to this House or lied in his written statement, and the Leader of the Opposition must call him to account. The Leader of the Opposition cannot present the member for Epping as the alternative chief law-maker of this State when the member for Epping does not follow the most basic rules of proper process. What we are seeing here is the hand of the extremist right and the influence that is having on the frontbench of the Liberal Party. The influence of David Clarke is undermining the leadership of the Leader of the Opposition, just as he undermined the leadership of the member for Vaucluse.
Mr Brad Hazzard: Point of order: The Minister has moved well outside the leave of the motion. I am sure you would like to bring her back to the leave of the motion so that we do not have to listen to any more of these juvenile attacks.
The SPEAKER: Order! I remind the Minister to confine her remarks to the substantive motion.

Ms REBA MEAGHER: It is important for the people of New South Wales to understand that the extreme right of the New South Wales Liberal Party demanded a frontbench position for the member for Epping. We are seeing David Clarke's agenda being played out in the New South Wales Parliament. [ Time expired.]
Mr CHRIS HARTCHER (Terrigal) [4.02 p.m.]: It is appropriate that the Minister for Health backed up the smear of the Minister for Police. The Minister for Health has a track record that was detailed in the Legislative Council when the document entitled "Abuse of Power" was tabled. That document contains many stories of how the Minister for Health and the Minister for Small Business and Regulatory Reform, and Minister for Ports and Waterways rorted the system for the right wing of the New South Wales branch of the Australian Labor Party [ALP]. It is even more appropriate that the Minister for Local Government was the other stand-up comedian on the politics of smear, because his reputation as the left wing's head kicker is unrivalled in the New South Wales Parliament. He used his maiden speech to launch a vicious personal attack on the then member for Camden, Liz Kernohan, when she admitted that she had suffered brain injury as a result of serious illness. He had the entire Parliament in uproar during the one speech when members of this House are supposed to observe a standard of decorum and dignity.
The Leader of the Opposition set out in the clearest terms that there is no contradiction between the document tabled by the Minister for Police and the statement made by the honourable member for Epping in this House on 10 May. Indeed, any reading of this document corroborates what the member for Epping said to the House on 10 May. Information was given to the member about apparently illicit material on a computer, and a report was then given to him. He then checked whether there was a lawful reason for the material to be on the computer. Having satisfied himself that there did not appear to be a lawful reason, he then sent for the officer involved and asked him whether there was any lawful reason for it. When the member did not receive a satisfactory explanation he took immediate action to secure the evidence, to secure the hard drive, and to prevent any contact between the officer and the staff of the information branch.
Throughout all this, and having maintained regular telephone contact with his senior, the Director of Public Prosecutions, Mr Cowdery, the member for Epping then suspended the officer, as was appropriate, and immediately contacted the police. What other course of conduct was he supposed to follow? There was no other course of conduct. The Government knew that the course of conduct followed by the member was appropriate; when I as the then shadow Attorney General raised this issue at the time the Government replied that the process had been followed appropriately. The only breakdown is the fact that the New South Wales police, under the jurisdiction of the Minister, took two days—two unexplained days—to investigate the matter at Dr Power's home. That is the gap in the process, which stops with the Minister. During every censure debate in this House the Minister has leapt to his feet to engage in the politics of smear.
Carl Scully was a magnificent witness to smear, and it was his downfall. The Premier told Carl Scully, "You can lie to Parliament once but when you lie to Parliament twice that is beyond the pale." In the Labor Party, in the Government, one is allowed to do anything one likes as long as one is not found out. There has been no finding out in this case because the member for Epping acted impeccably. That is why we are proud to have him in our ranks and to stand up for him this afternoon. The New South Wales branch of the Australian Labor Party lives on smear. Labor members smear the left, the right and their opponents. They are a political apparatus designed simply as a machine to secure jobs for their mates and contracts for their friends.
They exist for no other reason, and that is borne out time and time again. Having sought to prevent the entry into Parliament of the member for Epping, this somnolent Government, which is achieving nothing in this State and which has admitted to making false promises before the March election—The Spit Bridge is one example—is now using parliamentary time to smear him. However, it will not work because this document, tabled so wisely by the Minister for Police, refutes the Government's allegations. The member for Epping acted appropriately, and we support him. [ Time expired.]
Mr GREG SMITH (Epping) [4.07 p.m.], in response: As I said before, I have come here to raise the standard.
Ms Linda Burney: Thank you.
Mr GREG SMITH: I want us all to raise the standard. Some Government members, including the Minister for Fair Trading, want to raise the standards. People in the gallery would like to see a better standard. The fact is that I did everything properly in relation to Patrick Power. Let me correct something: Patrick Power was not my mate. I did not do him a favour. Basically, I told him, "This is the end of your career." That is effectively what happened on that day. Patrick Power left; he was suspended voluntarily. He was not allowed to come back, he never came back and he will never come back. He has been sentenced to jail. He has been absolutely pilloried in the media—some people would say that he deserves every bit of it. Nevertheless, that is what has happened to Patrick Power. I have done him no favours. I did not give him a character reference or anything of the sort. I basically told him that he had to go. I asked him if he would go.
As I mentioned in my explanatory document, there is no law that allows a crown prosecutor to be suspended. The Crown Prosecutors Act has not been amended in the past six months; nor has the Director of Public Prosecutions Act been amended. Perhaps there are plans to do so—who knows? I do not believe this would ever happen, but what would happen if a similar situation arose. Somebody else would have to get a person to voluntarily stand down because there is no power to suspend. I am not sure what happened in the police service when various people were suspended. They were probably given the right to say something in an interview before they were stood down on full pay, as was Patrick Power.

I know the Government has the numbers to defeat me, to censure me, to tell me I have been a bad boy. I have done nothing wrong. My personal explanation to Parliament was consistent with everything else I have said—not word for word, because in the personal explanation I could not go into the detail that I went into in that report and in other reports. The director said I did the right thing. The Attorney said at the time that I did the right thing. The Sydney Morning Herald said in its editorial that the way the Government is attacking Smith is bad. It is bad for the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, which is an important independent part of the criminal justice system, but there has been no apology and there has been no change. The Government is continuing with the matter. The budget of that office is being massively cut this year. The courts budget is being cut. The Folbigg case recently showed that the court did not have enough staff to put all the documents together, so a technical problem was found to allow Mrs Folbigg to bring another ground of appeal—because of budget cuts by this Government.
The Independent Commission Against Corruption [ICAC] cleared me. I gave it a full explanation. I spent a lot of time and gave it many documents and it cleared me. The Director of Public Prosecutions cleared me and supported me. The director and his office are being punished. My replacement has not been promoted. He is acting. He has been recommended but the Government is not going to appoint anybody at the moment. It has not appointed a new Crown Prosecutor permanently for about 2½ years. What is this Government doing with criminal justice in this State? Why is it trying to force so many matters into the Local Court and why is it picking on loyal people who have served this community well when they come into Parliament on the other side?
Mr DAVID CAMPBELL (Keira—Minister for Police, and Minister for the Illawarra) [4.11 p.m.], in reply: None of the contributions by those opposite have gone anywhere near justifying the shadow Attorney General's actions or providing a reasonable explanation as to why he misled the House. During the overwhelming majority of the contributions from the other side no-one went anywhere near the issue at hand, which is that the member for Epping misled Parliament. The member for Epping said that he was a nice bloke and we should leave him alone, but he did not go anywhere near justifying or explaining why he misled Parliament. These are the simple facts. The member for Epping told the House the main reason for communicating with Dr Power before the police was that he thought the material was work related. Yet when he called in Dr Power, his own notes tell us that he asked no questions on work-related pornography, no questions on child abuse cases and had no discussion on whether this was all a mistake. These notes state:
I then told him what had been found, asking him not to comment.
That is very different to what the member told Parliament on 10 May, when he said:

It was agreed that if no credible explanation were given I would request him to stand down.
Quite apart from his appalling actions on the day, the member for Epping has blatantly misled the House. He made statements in this Chamber that he knew to be false, simply trying to dig himself out of a hole. The member for Epping told this House the main reason for communicating with Dr Power before the police was that he thought the material was work-related. The member for Epping is clearly more concerned with his own reputation than with matters of child protection and justice, and he has done nothing in his contribution today to lift the standards of debate in this House. If he were serious about that he would resign because he did mislead Parliament, and the fact that members opposite would not talk about it demonstrates this is the case.

Question—That the motion be agreed to—put.
The House divided.

Mr Amery Ms Andrews Mr Aquilina Ms Beamer Mr Borger Mr Brown Ms Burney Ms Burton Mr Campbell Mr Collier Mr Coombs Mr Corrigan Mr Costa Mr Daley Ms D'Amore Ms Firth Ms Gadiel

Mr Gibson Mr Greene Mr Harris Mr Hickey Ms Hornery Ms Judge Ms Keneally Mr Khoshaba Mr Koperberg Mr Lynch Mr McBride Dr McDonald Ms McKay Mr McLeay Ms McMahon Ms Megarrity Mr Morris

Mrs Paluzzano Mr Pearce Mrs Perry Mr Rees Mr Sartor Mr Shearan Mr Stewart Ms Tebbutt Mr Terenzini Mr Tripodi Mr Watkins Mr Whan Tellers, Mr Ashton Mr Martin

Mr Aplin Mr Baird Mr Baumann Ms Berejiklian Mr Cansdell Mr Constance Mr Debnam Mr Draper Mrs Fardell Mr Fraser Ms Goward Mrs Hancock Mr Hartcher

Mr Hazzard Ms Hodgkinson Mrs Hopwood Mr Humphries Mr Kerr Mr Merton Mr O'Dea Mr O'Farrell Mr Page Mr Piccoli Mr Piper Mr Provest Mr Richardson

Mr Roberts Mrs Skinner Mr Smith Mr Souris Mr Stokes Mr Stoner Mr J. H. Turner Mr R. W. Turner Mr J. D. Williams Mr R. C. Williams Tellers, Mr George Mr Maguire

Question resolved in the affirmative.
Motion agreed to.