Stop the Circus, Faber Demands

Patrick Faber

But Deputy Prime Minister Patrick Faber has a different take. This morning, he told the media that the usefulness of the inquiry has come and gone and there is a push for it to serve a political agenda by some individuals. Faber particularly called out Senator Eamon Courtenay.

Patrick Faber, Deputy Prime Minister

“I said that I believe that the usefulness of the Senate Inquiry has come and gone. Listen, it has become somewhat of a circus now. Particularly Senator Courtenay leads a charge to try to be Pontius Pilate to try to blame and try to witch hunt for certain people; like calling in Alvarene Burgess; completely misinterpreting the law. They want to push this, push this to serve a political agenda rather than, in our view, to find out the facts and to deal with it. What has come out of the Senate Inquiry, is that while there were speculations that the Ministers were the ones who were involved in all of this corruption; that was the goal – to try to expose – that, in fact, all levels in the system there are problems. Now we have identified all of that. All that continuing these hearings can do is to show other examples of the same thing. What now needs to happen is that that report needs to be written as quickly as possible so that we can get on with the business of fixing what is wrong with this system; in terms of putting in the mechanisms; which, if you listen to Minister Hulse, he is saying some of these mechanisms have already been put in. Because if you remember, there was major reform after all of this exposure especially as it had to do with the Penner incident. So, we believe that it is time to get on with the business of the government and stop the circus.”