Zed Seselja slams ACT Assembly over resolution with 'serious inaccuracies and falsehoods'

But the territory's Human Rights Minister Tara Cheyne and Attorney-General Shane Rattenbury have rejected claims they had misled the Assembly and members of the federal government.

Labor and the Greens voted down an opposition motion which called on the ministers to write to all federal senators and members for misleading them.

The territory's parliament passed a motion last month denouncing a letter from federal Attorney-General Michaelia Cash that said the government had no plans to reverse a federal ban which bans the territories from legislating on voluntary assisted dying.

The motion was also critical of the fact the ACT had been left off a bill from Northern Territory Country Liberal senator Sam McMahon which would restore the NT's right to debate on the matter.

The motion, put forward by Human Rights Minister Tara Cheyne and Attorney-General Shane Rattenbury, said that the ACT was left off Senator McMahon's bill due to the "explicit request" of Senator Seselja.

In a letter to ACT speaker Joy Burch, Senator Seselja said the statement was "categorically false and inaccurate".

"At no stage did I request - either explicitly or implicitly - that the ACT be removed from the legislation referred to in the resolution," the letter said.

Senator McMahon has previously told The Canberra Times that Senator Seselja would not support the bill and that she decided to not add the ACT to the bill.

But the NT senator has previously rejected claims that Senator Seselja had blocked her from including the ACT in the bill.

Senator McMahon said the decision was made of her own accord and claims that suggested otherwise were "false, baseless, and incorrect", in a letter to Labor senator Katy Gallagher.

Senator Seselja said this letter was public knowledge and that the code of conduct for the members of the Legislative Assembly had been breached.

"I am alarmed that the Assembly has adopted a resolution containing such serious inaccuracies and falsehoods," his letter said.

"Ministers Cheyne and Rattenbury who sponsored this resolution have either deliberately misled the Assembly or have been grossly incompetent in failing to ascertain the veracity of their own resolution."

However, both Ms Cheyne and Mr Rattenbury strongly defended their motion.

Ms Cheyne claimed Mr Hanson's motion and Senator Seselja's letter was a "red herring" and was about semantics. She said the motion was "evidence-based" and had reflected quotes from both Senator McMahon and Senator Seselja.

Mr Rattenbury said he believed the motion presented last month reflected the situation.

"We did not make a false and misleading assertion. There is clearly a political dispute here, and perhaps a subtle word or two that might have been used differently - maybe different people use different words to describe the same situation. The English language is flexible like that," he said.

"But the central point remains that the reason the ACT is not in Senator McMahon's bill is because of Senator Seselja's position. That was the point made in the resolution and I stand by that."

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The ACT senator's letter was also sent to all federal senators.

Senator Seselja's letter was tabled in the Legislative Assembly on Tuesday, following this opposition Whip Jeremy Hanson brought forward a motion calling for the Assembly to amend the record. However, the government voted to postpone a debate on the motion.

The debate was held on Wednesday afternoon.

Mr Hanson's motion called for Mr Rattenbury and Ms Cheyne to withdraw this assertion, apologise to Senator Seselja and Senator McMahon and apologise to all federal senators and members and explain they had withdrawn the assertion.

Mr Hanson was absolutely scathing of the government for not passing the motion.

"I must say I'm disappointed but perhaps not surprised by the standard that has been set by the Labor Party and the Greens in this place," he said.

"And that is that you can come in here, you speak falsehoods, you can mislead and you can get the speaker to write to all federal members of Parliament with matters that are inaccurate and misleading."

Mr Hanson also said on Tuesday this would be detrimental to the Assembly's reputation on the hill and the Federal Parliament may be apprehensive to restore territory rights.

"There is no need for a delay on this matter that needs to be dealt with and I think that it is reasonable that given these false, misleading statements have been made and have been circulated by this place to the Federal Parliament that the record is corrected," he said.

"Why would anyone in the Federal Parliament trust us? Why after this debacle would anybody on the hill say they deserve state rights."

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