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LNP Arts Minister Ros Bates caught out plagiarising speech by Labor predecessor




The Sunday Mail - Kelmeny Fraser: NEW LNP Arts Minister Ros Bates has been caught out recycling a speech by her Labor predecessor and delivering it word-for-word.
In one of her first speeches to State Parliament since her party swept to power, Ms Bates delivered the near-identical 740-word speech that former ALP arts minister Rachel Nolan gave to the House less than six months earlier.
The four-minute speech was on legislative changes paving the way for a new committee to govern activities by the Queensland Art Gallery.
Only a handful of words had been changed from its first airing in Parliament last November by Ms Nolan, who was dumped at the March poll.
Ms Bates yesterday blamed staff from her department for the borrowed speech.
She said the introductory speech was usually a summary of the explanatory notes written by staff for the minister.
"This is a first reading of a procedural Bill which was in train before the election and has bipartisan support," Ms Bates said. "The first reading is procedural and nothing more than a simplified outline of the Bill based on the technical aspects around the legislative principles and is not political."
But Opposition Arts spokeswoman Jackie Trad called on Premier Campbell Newman to give the arts portfolio to a more "imaginative" minister.
"If the biggest effort made so far by Ms Bates is to hit the button on her office photocopier, perhaps taxpayers aren't getting real value for money," she said.
It is not the first time a minister has borrowed words, with federal Transport Minister Anthony Albanese in January ripping off lines from Hollywood in a speech to the National Press Club.
Mr Albanese said he was unaware his staff had pinched a speech from the 1995 film, The American President.
Mr Albanese said: "In Australia we have serious challenges to solve and we need serious people to solve them." It was nearly identical to the script.

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