Page 923 - Week 03 - Thursday, 7 April 2022
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whether the fire systems at Calwell High were in good working order. She said, “Yes.” It is quite clear from the evidence from WorkSafe that they are not. How does she explain that?
MR ACTING SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr Hanson. Minister, I would ask you to be relevant to the question if you can, please.
MS BERRY: I was relevant, Mr Acting Speaker, so I disagree with what the member of the opposition is saying. Yesterday I was asked in relation to a prohibition notice and my response was that I believe they are because that is the advice that I have been given. I will check, but I am confident that the advice I was given in responding to the prohibition notice, which was the only notice that we all knew about before the two improvement notices came out—that the response I provided was in response to the issues that were raised in that notice.
Mr Hanson: The question was whether the fire systems were in good working order.
Mr Gentleman: Mr Acting Speaker, on a point of order. The standing orders make it very clear about questions—they cannot contain imputations or inferences. Mr Milligan’s question deliberately contained an imputation on the validity of the answer previously by the minister. I would ask that you rule the question out of order.
MR ACTING SPEAKER: I am going to seek advice from the Clerk on that, Mr Gentleman.
Mr Gentleman: 117(a) and 117(d).
Mr Hanson: On the point of order, if I may, the reality is that the question is in order, because the minister’s response from yesterday has been proven to be untrue. The question was quite clear.
MR ACTING SPEAKER: Mr Hanson, if you can—
Ms Berry: Point of order. Mr Hanson has just said that my answer yesterday was untrue.
MR ACTING SPEAKER: And this is the point of contention, Ms Berry—
Ms Berry: No, I think he needs to—
MR ACTING SPEAKER: I am going to have to review the Hansard and make a ruling on this that I will bring to the chamber later. I can understand that there are aspects of statements that were made that did not line up with the question. I understand that Mr Gentleman’s point of order is that someone was being accused of lying, but I am not sure that that is actually what the accusation is. We will move on to the supplementary to that question, which is coming from Mr Milligan.
MR MILLIGAN: Thank you, Mr Acting Speaker. Minister, were you unaware of the truth about the fire extinguishers or did you deliberately mislead?
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