The Liberal Member for Davidson, Jonathan O’Dea, says Labor’s “me-tooism” federally has spread to the NSW Lazy Labor Party.
When recently introducing the Government Schools (Infrastructure Register) Bill in NSW Parliament, the National Party Leader, Andrew Stoner, properly acknowledged previous efforts of the Liberal Party Deputy Leader, Jillian Skinner, to introduce similar legislation.
“In debate on the bill, the Member for Strathfield, Virginia Judge, recognised Mr Stoner’s acknowledgement of his Coalition colleague, but stated her preference that Mr Stoner had ‘ideas of his own’. The sheer irony and astounding hypocrisy of her words is apparent when one examines her speech in which these words were spoken. It plagiarises an earlier speech on this bill delivered by her Labor colleague, Joe Tripodi, the Member for Fairfield,” Mr O’Dea said.
“Material of substantive length is copied virtually verbatim, without attribution. Most of her speech in this adjourned debate was a slightly re-ordered repeat of Mr Tripodi’s speech .
“The Member for Strathfield’s speech demonstrates a lack of care that is becoming a trademark of this Lazy Labor Government. What is even worse is that the plagiarist is a former teacher and current Parliamentary Secretary for Education who was speaking on a government schools bill. What sort of example is this Labor government setting to our NSW school children?”
“In September 2003 the then NSW Education Minister, Dr Andrew Refshauge, said: ‘The potential for plagiarism to cause serious damage is enormous and must be headed off.’
“In November 2006 the then NSW Education Minister, Carmel Tebbutt, announced a new compulsory online course in the fight against cheating and plagiarism. It helps senior school students understand the principles and practices of ethical research and use of information. The Parliamentary Secretary for Education and Member for Strathfield should study this course herself.”
For further information, please call Jonathan O’Dea on 0418 241 500.
