Thomas Professor Tony

[This version of the document has been edited by Dr Robert N Moles
Underlining where it occurs is for editorial emphasis]

Wednesday 24 March 2004 Legislative Council

Adjourned debate on motion of Hon. A.J. Redford:

That this Legislative Council notes that the Attorney-General, the Hon. M.J. Atkinson MP, in a ministerial statement given to the House of Assembly on Monday 22September 2003

1. Acknowledged that he misled parliament in giving a ministerial statement on 1April 2003.

2. Apologised for not including Justice Mullighan's ruling in the said ministerial statement.

3. Failed to apologise to Professor Thomas for suggesting that Professor Thomas was not a qualified forensic pathologist.

4. Failed to apologise to Professor Thomas for alleging that Professor Thomas had not carried out a post mortem investigation on a homicide case in South Australia.

5. Failed to apologise to Professor Thomas for suggesting that Professor Thomas was not a person inclined to give \impartial or independent evidence to courts.

6. Failed to apologise to Professor Thomas for suggesting that Professor Thomas gave evidence to a court that was unreliable and unsatisfactory.

7. Suggested that a delay of nine weeks to partially correct a misleading statement to the parliament complies with the Ministerial Code of Conduct's requirement that ministers have a responsibility to ensure that errors are `corrected or clarified as soon as possible.'

8. Blamed others for the incorrect facts alleged in the ministerial statement.

(Continued from 25 February. Page 1103.)

TheHon.P.HOLLOWAY (Minister for Industry, Trade and Regional Development): I repeat the comments that I made last time, that there are matters currently being considered by the Crown Solicitor and the advice we have is that this matter should not be subject to public discussion. The government does not believe in pursuing this matter further at this time.

TheHon.A.J.REDFORD: The Attorney-General, through his representative the Hon. Paul Holloway, has not sought to defend himself in relation to the matters set out in this motion, and I suspect that this will not be the last we hear of this issue. In respect of what the leader said in relation to his contribution, and in order to place a few matters on the public record, I think I should say this. On the last occasion that we were dealing with this matter, which was 25 February, the Hon. Paul Holloway sought leave to conclude. In his short statement he said that the government was advised by the Solicitor General that it would not be prudent to make any further comment on this matter until those proceedings were finalised.

I am a believer in parliament upholding the traditions and respecting what courts might or might not be doing, and I respect that if a matter is before a court, particularly if it is before a jury, then nothing should be said in this parliament that might have any potential to impact upon that. So what I did was, on 5 March this year, following the comments made by the Hon. Paul Holloway because I have my suspicions in relation to how this Attorney-General behaves I wrote a letter, and I copied it to the Hon. Paul Holloway. In my letter, which I will read in full, I said:

I refer to the debate on the motion I introduced in the Legislative Council last year regarding Professor Thomas. On 25February 2004 the Hon. Paul Holloway made a statement in the Legislative Council regarding this motion and I attach a copy from the Hansard. I note that the government was reluctant to proceed with the debate and would have preferred the matter to have been adjourned. The Hon. Paul Holloway, after his brief contribution, sought leave to conclude in order that we (the Opposition) can properly consider whether the debate should be adjourned or whether the Hon. Paul Holloway should obtain further leave to conclude when the matter is next considered on 24March 2004. I would be grateful if you could provide us with further information. In particular, would you please advise:

1. (a) To what proceedings is the government referring?

(b) To what applications is the government referring?

(c) To what bodies is the government referring in the first sentence of the speech?

2. Without disclosing the actual advice, on what basis is the Solicitor-General advising that this debate should not proceed?

3. When do you anticipate the finalisation of the proceedings?

I would be grateful if I could have your response prior to Tuesday 23March 2004.

I have not had a response to that letter and it is a disgraceful performance on the part of this government that it would make these assertions in an attempt to hold up a debate in the parliament and not have the guts to come in here and sit down and explain to the opposition what proceedings, bodies or applications the government is referring to.

One might be forgiven for thinking that this government might be making up these things, because it has not suggested at any time that there are any such things occurring. If one looks at the history of this matter, I moved this motion back in September last year six months ago and when I sought to have the debate finalised before Christmas I was given an excuse that there was a matter in which Professor Thomas was giving evidence before a criminal court in a jury matter. When I confirmed that (because with this Attorney-General you have to do things like that, unfortunately), I found that he was giving evidence and I acceded to this matter being adjourned. I sent another note in February saying that I wanted this debate concluded and this Attorney-General did not respond at all. I did not hear anything until the Hon.Paul Holloway rose to his feet and made his contribution on that occasion.

Then when I sent this letter to try to clarify where this debate ought to go, I got nothing. All I can say is this: I have never seen contempt of this chamber or this parliament to the extent that this Attorney-General has shown with this motion, which goes to the very essence of his credibility and whether or not we as members of parliament, or the public whom we represent, ought to believe anything he says. At the end of the day this is an Attorney-General who cannot work out whether he is at a barbecue: he does not know what food is being cooked. Only this week he sat down and made statements to the media about what Paul Rofe QC, who has enough problems without the Attorney-General adding to them, has done in relation to some suspects in an alleged crime and then he had to come in and correct that. On one of those occasions he thought it was a big joke. It is not a joke when the first law officer of this state says things and the public and members of the parliament have trouble knowing when to accept on face value what the Attorney-General is saying and when not to accept it.

It is not the only thing the Attorney-General has done since I moved my motion back in September last year and not the only thing this Attorney-General has done when he sought, via his ministerial statement on September 2003, to apologise to the House of Assembly but not to Professor Thomas. This Attorney-General does not give in. He is a vindictive person when it comes to anyone who might seek to stand up to him and challenge something he might say. I will explain how vindictive this Attorney-General can get when dealing with ordinary members of the public who have the temerity to question what he might say.

On 21November this year, instead of walking into this chamber or writing a letter of apology to Professor Thomas for suggesting that he was a witness in a court who did not tell the truth, exaggerated his evidence and claimed false qualifications, instead he wrote thisI will not go into detail, but it tells you the character of the Attorney-General:

The purpose of my letter is to offer you a right of reply to comments I made about you in a ministerial statement on 1April 2003 and comments I further intend to make in another statement to parliament.

This is the first paragraph. No apology, no `oops, I got it wrong and I hope I did not hurt your reputation when I savagely defamed you in my ministerial statement as the first law officer of the state'. This letter was saying: you keep this up and I will go into parliament and make another statement. It is the nastiest, grubbiest conduct I have seen from an Attorney-General in my life. He goes on in the statement to say:

On 1April I made a statement in response to issues raised on Today Tonight about the murder of Anna-Jane Cheney and the subsequent conviction of Henry Keogh for her murder. My statement was made in good faith. In that statement I attempted, among other things, to urge Today Tonight to behave more responsibly.

No apology appears in that sentence for having savagely defamed Professor Thomas. He then goes on to say:

In making my statement I quoted comments about you that were made by Magistrate Baldino in the case of Police and B. I did not know at the time that on appeal Justice Mullighan had made a contrary ruling about your expertise. Had I known about Justice Mullighan's comments, I assure you that I would not have quoted the Magistrate Baldino in my statement.

You then go into the letter and search high and low and wonder whether this Attorney-General would have the character and purpose to apologise to Professor Thomas, but, no, he does not. It is like catching someone with their hand in the lolly jar. I know that you, MrPresident, when you used to stand here, used the analogy of someone who has their hand caught in the lolly jar and the regret is not that he is a thief but that he got caught. That is how the Attorney-General's conduct in this case can be characterised. No wonder the Attorney-General did not have the guts to come in here and say something through the Hon.Paul Holloway. He goes on to say:

I can say unequivocally you are an anatomical pathologist who has a subspeciality expertise in cardiac pathology.

He then goes on to acknowledge various qualifications Professor Thomas has before stating:

I have apologised to the parliament for inadvertently misleading the members of the House of Assembly and I have undertaken to make a further statement on you and your expertise.

The Hon. Sandra Kanck: He often misleads the House of Assembly.

The Hon. R. I. Lucas: And the community.

The Hon. A. J. REDFORD: And the community, more importantly. But, he does not go on and

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: On a point of order, sir, the honourable member has made serious allegations of misleading against the Attorney. Those allegations are unfounded and under standing orders he should not be able to make them.

The Hon. A. J. Redford: He has misled the house that is what the motion is about.

The PRESIDENT: I am considering the point of order. The subject matter is to do with Professor Thomas and statements made by the Attorney-General. This is a substantive motion and greater latitude than normal is provided for. As to comment on the conduct of any member of parliament, if the minister is alleging that there has been misleading there is probably a better way of putting it than saying that he is deliberately misleading. That is probably a safer way of putting it. Whilst substantive motions allow latitude, I remind members that I have often requested that they maintain the dignity of the council. Parliamentary language is never all that hard to maintain. I am sure the Hon. MrRedford has taken on board the concerns expressed by the leader of the government and will tailor his remarks appropriately.

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: I will speak to the point of order. I was not so much concerned with the allegation in the motion, but the honourable member was, I suggest, alleging that the Attorney misleads people on many other issues that are not related to this matter, and that is the point to which I was objecting.

The PRESIDENT: It is an offensive remark, and I do not see that the substantive motion excuses that sort of language. I ask the Hon. Mr Redford to adjust his language appropriately. He is a competent orator, and I am sure that he can achieve that.

The Hon. A. J. REDFORD: I thank you for your guidance, Mr President, and, out of respect both to you personally and to your office, I will endeavour not to stray so as not to upset the leader, although the facts in this case should be upsetting to not only the leader but to every single member of caucus. Indeed, when one considers what characteristics are required of the Attorney-General in this state, this Attorney-General falls very short of the sorts of standards set by people such as Chris Sumner, Trevor Griffin and Robert Lawson. This despicable letter and I cannot use less strong words than that states:

I have apologised to the parliament for inadvertently misleading the house.

Before there is an interjection, these are the Attorney's words:

I have apologised to the parliament for inadvertently misleading the members of the House of Assembly, and I have undertaken to make a further statement on you and your expertise.

What a threat! What a disgrace this Attorney-General is! He defames a person, he gets caught out and then he comes back at this person and says that he will make another statement on him. That is a despicable act on the part of an Attorney-General. The letter continues:

I may base that statement on the advice I have received from the State Forensic Science Centre, which I enclose for your use.

Where is the apology? Not even the honourable leader wants to interject, which is a very courageous thing to do in the face of this information. The Attorney cannot do anything but offer four lines of a limp-wristed excuse and absolutely no information to back up the assertions that he made. Quite frankly, the leader wants to be careful that he does not associate himself too closely with this Attorney-General and this sort of despicable conduct.

In this letter, the Attorney-General states that he enclosed a letter from the State Forensic Science Centre which was given to him on a strictly confidential basis. I might add that that was not honoured, because I have a copy of it, but then he did not feel obliged to honour a suggestion on the part of an Attorney-General who happens to act in such a malicious fashion as this Attorney-General wants to. The letter also states that he is not to disclose it to anyone. I will not spend too long on this, but he goes on for page after page with various criticisms made of Professor Thomas. Interestingly enough, what Professor Thomas did was what you would have done, Mr President, if you were a worker, or what you would have advised a worker to do who had been savagely attacked by the first law officer in the state: effectively, he went to his union. He went to the Forensic Pathologists Association.

There will be another motion on this topic, and I will allude to what the pathologists of Australia are saying about this Attorney-General and those who would seek to use parliamentary privilege to savagely defame and attack a nationally and internationally well-respected forensic pathologist in the state of South Australia. I have to say that there is no end to the viciousness and the nastiness that this Attorney-General, aided and abetted by this government, will stoop to get someone who might have the guts to criticise them.

The Hon. CARMEL ZOLLO: I rise on a point of order. The honourable member is reflecting upon the character of a member in another place, and I believe that that is out of order.

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Angus Redford does have some protection with a substantive motion. I have asked honourable members to maintain the standard of parliamentary language. The Hon. Mr Redford said that he would move a motion in which he would talk about certain issues so, technically speaking, that is not covered by the substantive motion. I think we have the gist of what the Hon. Angus Redford thinks of some of the conduct that has led to this matter and we are starting to go around in circles. At this stage, I think that the Hon. Mr Redford should conclude his observations and take the appropriate action of the council.

The Hon. A. J. REDFORD: They may well seek to raise points of order on a regular basis, because they will not stand here and put a definitive and reasoned argument as to why the Attorney-General will not apologise to Professor Thomas. Let me read into Hansard what Professor Thomas's lawyer said in response to this despicable attack on Professor Thomas by this Attorney-General. It states:

To the Hon. Michael Atkinson, MP, Attorney-General, GPO Box 464, Adelaide, SA 5001.

Dear Sir,

Re Associate Professor Tony Thomas.

We act for Associate Professor Tony Thomas. Our client has provided us with a copy of your letter of 21 November 2003 and the attached report from Dr Cala of the Forensic Science Centre, which he received on the morning of 27 November 2003 and in an envelope postmarked 25 November 2003 at 23.41 hours.

I accept the accuracy of the facts in this part of the event. The letter continues:

We note your request that our client keep Dr Cala's report confidential. Our client does not accept this limitation which you seek to place upon his use of the report. The report represents a serious and defamatory attack on his competence and professionalism. Given your indication that you intend making reference to that report in parliament, which will, of course, result in the wide dissemination of the contents of that report, our client will take whatever steps he is advised to take in order to protect his reputation. We will, in due course, respond in detail to the matters addressed in Dr Cala's report. The purpose of this letter is simply to point out some of the more serious factual errors in that report. A number of those errors ought to have been apparent from consideration of our client's curriculum vitae.

Mr President, you might recall that I went through Professor Thomas's curriculum vitae in some detail when I moved that motion. So, if the details in Professor Thomas's curriculum vitae were not drawn directly to the attention of the Attorney-General, he would have read them in Hansard (and I know that this Attorney-General reads it closely). The letter continues:

From your previous statements in parliament in relation to our client, it would appear that you already have a copy of his curriculum vitae but, if you do not, please let us know and we will forward you a copy.

The letter continues, but I will not commit the same offence as the Attorney-General committed. If the Attorney-General is going to defame Professor Thomas, I will not be used as the excuse, so I will not go into the detail of the series of factual errors that the Attorney-General made in sending his allegations to Professor Thomas, except to say that there are at least four pages of criticism. However, I will read the last two paragraphs of the letter:

Finally, the suggestion by Dr Cala on page five of his report that he is concerned that our client `has not been wholly impartial nor a witness of truth' is nothing more than a disgraceful and gratuitous attack upon our client. There is nothing in Dr Cala's report which provides any basis whatsoever for this attack. In fact, similar suggestions made by Magistrate Baldino were severely criticised by Justice Mullighan. As mentioned earlier, we will, in due course, respond to DrCala's report in greater detail.

He then goes on to say:

In the circumstances, our client considers that any reference by you in parliament to the matters set out in Dr Cala's report would be a most unfair attack upon his reputation.

I have news for poor old Professor Thomas: that has never stopped this Attorney-General in the past. He then goes on to say:

We request that you do not make any further public comment upon this matter until you have received the more detailed response foreshadowed.

So, we have an Attorney-General who has acknowledged that he misled parliament, and who has done everything in his power to avoid fessing up to Professor Thomas and apologising for the hurt he has caused him. In addition, the Attorney-General has then gone about seeing whether he can get any more information on Professor Thomas for an opportunity to come in and defame him again. What did Professor Thomas do to deserve all this, one might ask? He had the temerity to go on television and criticise something. That is what he did. I have never seen a more disgraceful use by a minister of the Crown of parliamentary privilege than what the Attorney-General has done on this occasion. With those few words, I commend the motion.

The council divided on the motion:

AYES(13)

Dawkins, J. S. L. Evans, A. L.

Gilfillan, I. Kanck, S. M.

Lawson, R. D. Lensink, J. M. A.

Lucas, R. I. Redford, A. J. (teller)

Reynolds, K. Ridgway, D. W.

Schaefer, C. V. Stefani, J. F.

Xenophon, N.

NOES(5)

Gago, G. E. Gazzola, J.

Holloway, P. (teller) Sneath, R. K.

Zollo, C.

PAIR(S) Pairs

Stephens, T. J. Roberts, T. G.

Majority of 8 for the ayes.

Motion thus carried.

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