Howlett decries questioning as ‘misogynist attack’<\/a><\/p>\nTasmania’s racing minister has attempted to bat away Labor questioning over what her office knew about an apparent breach to election caretaker conventions as “nothing but a misogynist attack”.<\/p>\n
During questioning in March, Ms Howlett tabled a statutory declaration signed by Mr Gaetani, which stated that at no time was he aware that Tasracing intended to issue a text message or social media post regarding TasInsure.<\/p>\n
A second statutory declaration from Mr Gaetani was then tabled the next day to expand this to cover “any public communication about the TasInsure policy on any platform”.<\/p>\n
Mr Turner was asked if this aligned with his recollection.<\/p>\n
Dean Winter: Doesn’t sound very accurate though, does it?<\/p>\n
Mr Turner: Well, that’s a matter for him.<\/p>\n
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The Department of Premier and Cabinet found the Tasracing messaging to be in breach of the election guidelines. (ABC News: Maren Preuss)<\/p>\n
In tabling the statutory declaration in March, Ms Howlett said that Mr Gaetani “had no prior knowledge of this message”.<\/p>\n
She also repeatedly denied that her office was aware that a text message would be sent to industry participants.<\/p>\n
This was also put to Mr Turner today.<\/p>\n
Dean Winter: Minister Howlett says, “I can certainly tell you that I and no-one in my office was aware”. Mr Turner, is that statement from Ms Howlett correct?<\/p>\n
Mr Turner: All I can do is tell you what I did, and what I did was provide a version of what Tasracing was going to say to the minister’s office. I can’t speak to why she said that.<\/p>\n
Caretaker conventions are that government resources should not be used to promote party-political messaging during election periods.<\/p>\n
Department of Premier and Cabinet secretary Kathrine Morgan-Wicks found the Tasracing messaging to be in breach of the election guidelines.<\/p>\n
Ms Howlett had not been made aware of this finding when asked in parliament earlier this month, later clarifying that the breach had been confirmed.<\/p>\n
Tasracing chief executive officer Andrew Jenkins accepted responsibility for the messaging.<\/p>\n
During the election campaign, Ms Howlett posted the Tasracing messaging as a comment on her Facebook page, then told parliament she was unaware of it until her own Facebook post was brought to her attention.<\/p>\n
She then corrected the record.<\/p>\n
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Racing Minister Jane Howlett used social media to share Tasracing’s statement on TasInsure. (Facebook: Jane Howlett)<\/p>\n
Parliament returns on Tuesday<\/p>\n
Labor and the Greens have called for Ms Howlett to resign from cabinet.<\/p>\n
Labor’s Ella Haddad said Mr Turner’s evidence “directly contradicts a statutory declaration” made by Mr Gaetani.<\/p>\n
Greens leader Rosalie Woodruff said Mr Turner’s evidence contradicted Ms Howlett’s assurance that her office was unaware of the messaging.<\/p>\n
Parliament returns on Tuesday, but it’s unclear if a no-confidence motion will be moved in Ms Howlett, or a censure motion.<\/p>\n
The government maintains that Ms Howlett and her adviser had not done anything wrong.<\/p>\n
“The minister’s advisor did not have knowledge of Tasracing’s intended plan to issue public communications,” they said.<\/p>\n
“The adviser did what he was employed to do \u2014 answer stakeholder questions about the policy.”<\/p>\n
Former minister Madeleine Ogilvie resigned from cabinet<\/a> last month over how she answered questions regarding her undisclosed Supreme Court matter, in which she had accrued at least $120,000 in taxpayer-funded legal fees.<\/p>\nShe initially told parliament she was not a party to any matter, then tabled a clarification in a different committee that she was not a party to a matter initiated by someone else, then confirmed in parliament she had initiated Supreme Court action herself.<\/p>\n
The government has not accepted that she misled parliament; Labor and the Greens argue Ms Howlett should also resign because she also could not answer questions about undisclosed legal processes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tasmanian Racing Minister Jane Howlett is facing mounting calls to resign from cabinet, after evidence in parliament called…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":737942,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,259379,44,259380,45838,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-737941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-jane-howlett","tag-news","tag-tasinsure","tag-tasracing","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=737941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/737942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=737941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=737941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=737941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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