Mr. Katsambanis questions the Premier regarding a Supreme Court injunction related to the Bennett Brook Disability Justice Centre and the government's stance on free speech. The Premier denies involvement and defends the use of injunctions in certain cases.

AnsweredQoN 557Legislative Assembly
Asked
6 August 2019
Portfolio
Premier

QuestionView source ↗

BENNETT BROOK DISABILITY
JUSTICE CENTRE — SUPREME COURT INJUNCTION
557. Mr P.A. KATSAMBANIS to the Premier:
I have a supplementary question. I would
have expected the Premier of the state to know whether or not he was.
Point of Order
Mr D.A.
TEMPLEMAN : The question is a supplementary question, not a preamble.
The SPEAKER : Get to the point,
please, member.
Questions without Notice Resumed
Mr P.A. KATSAMBANIS : Is the
Premier in favour of free speech and a free media that fearlessly reports the
truth or will he again in the future use the Supreme Court, at taxpayers'
expense, to kill off embarrassing stories for his government?
Several members interjected.
The SPEAKER : Members!

AnswerView source ↗

These are not matters that I have
had any involvement in. Often injunctions are taken out by all governments
against the publication of certain matters. For instance, there are rules
around the publication of matters to do with sexual assaults and the like,
because we do not want to identify victims in those matters. Courts put these
rules in place all the time. I thought that, as someone who professes to have a
law degree, the member might understand that there are suppression orders on
details of certain matters all the time.
In relation to the freedom of the
press, of course I support the freedom of the press. What a bizarre question.
Members of the press are up there in the press gallery. They look pretty free
to me. Look at them. They are sitting there, engrossed by what is going on in
this chamber today! They love it. They love question time. They especially love
the questions from government MPs. They are very fond of the dorothy dixers we
do. We provide a lot of material for the press and we appreciate its freedom.

Explore WA Government Data

Search the full archive in the free dashboard, or query programmatically via API.

Explore more