PM Transcripts

PRESS OFFICE TRANSCRIP'T7JUE19
DOORSTOP INTERVIEW ON IAN SINCLAIR ' L
Prime Minister:
This whole matter has been sub. ject to the grossest injustice,
perpetrated by the Labor Pa; 7ty and also by some people in NSW.
There is, what is in affect, an inquiry that has judicial
implications, being undertaken by an agency for the NSW Labor
government. Time and time again, some of the evidence has been
leaked out into the Parliament through some Opposition office in
this Parliament. The matter is part heard. Evidence alleged
evidence is part introduced into the Parliament, all designed
quite deliberately to damage Ian Sinclair. There is a long
standing rule that this kind of debate cannot take the place
of a judicial proceeding. That is so that people's future
will not be prejudiced, so that the court can make its
findings properly and clearly, and then whatever flows from
that, flows.
There is no such rule to protect Members, whether they be Members
of Parliament, or members of the public, from quasi judicial
proceedings, from administrative proceedings, which can have
just as great an effect on the future of individuals as can a
normal judicial proceeding in a court. This is a matter that
teParliament is really going to have to look to, I believe.
I~ z is not only a question of what happens to Members of
ra;= rliament, it is also very much a question that as things
no3w stand people outside Parliament can, without any redress,
be slandered and destroyed by statements made inside the
Parliament. We have not acted on this before because the Sinclair inquiry,
conducted by the NSW Labor government has been continuing. We
did not want allegations of trying to drop debate in the middle
of that particular inquiry because it had been'started in that way.
But once Finnane ' 5 report, on behalf of the Labor government,
has been completed and published, then I think very seriously,
the Parliament needs to look to its own procedures. Great and
gross injustices have been perpetrated by bringing into the
Parliament some evidence, or things alleged to be evidence, not
neces'sarily corroborated, by members of the Labor Party. This
all ougrht to have waited on the results of Mr Finnane's inquiry.
I've said, on a number of occasions, that there is a question
of basic common decency, that there is a question of basic
justice in the way these things ought to be handled. That
has certainly been absent in the case of Ian Sinclair. 7 JUNE 19 79