Attorney-General Vickie Chapman’s lawyer moves to throw Tom Koutsantonis off KI seaport inquiry

The Attorney-General says Labor MP Tom Koutsantonis must quit a committee probing her decision to reject a KI seaport, because he’s already made up his mind.

Attorney-General Vickie Chapman has moved to derail an inquiry into her scrapping of plans to build a deepwater port on Kangaroo Island, by attempting to boot Labor adversary Tom Koutsantonis from the investigating committee.

Ms Chapman’s high-profile lawyer Frances Nelson QC has urged Mr Koutsantonis to banish himself, claiming a “reasonable apprehension of bias”.

In an application for recusal sent to select committee chairwoman and Labor MP Andrea Michaels, Ms Nelson cited 10 examples in the media of Mr Koutsantonis criticising Ms Chapman’s conduct and urging her to resign.

“If the ultimate report of the Select Committee is to have any credibility, (Mr Koutsantonis) must recuse himself forthwith,” the submission says.

The submission goes on to question Mr Koutsantonis’s ability to consider the matter “impartially or without prejudice”.

Labor MP Tom Koutsantonis is being urged to “recuse himself” from sitting on the committee.

The select parliamentary committee is investigating whether Ms Chapman had a conflict of interested and breached the ministerial code of conduct in rejecting Kangaroo Island Plantation Timbers’ application to construct a $20m deepwater port at Smith Bay.

The plan was proposed to export timber from the island, potentially solving a decades-long question about how to transfer the wood to the mainland and overseas markets.

Ms Chapman has denied any conflict of interest and previously described the inquiry as a “witch hunt”.

Ms Nelson, in her submission, said the committee was charged with providing a report to parliament after hearing all evidence.

“Given what has fallen from (Mr Koutsantonis), no fair-minded lay observer would conclude that he was able to decide the factual matrix in this matter impartially or without prejudice,” Ms Nelson wrote.

The parliamentary inquiry is examining whether Ms Chapman had a conflict of interest in scrapping the Smith Bay port plan. Picture: Keryn Stevens

Asked to respond, Mr Koutsantonis told The Advertiser he thought evidence heard so far in the inquiry against Ms Chapman was “overwhelming” and it was “hard not to come to the conclusion that (she) needs to resign”.

Counsel assisting the inquiry, Rachael Gray QC, last week said maps showed Ms Chapman owned property “across the road” from a forest that would have been farmed under the Smith Bay plan.

Mr Koutsantonis said to The Advertiser he thought “any reasonable person looking at that map” would think Ms Chapman should resign.

The committee, which includes two Liberal MPs Peter Treloar and Matt Cowdrey and independent Sam Duluk, sits again on Tuesday.

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