Page 1947 - Week 07 - Thursday, 31 May 1990
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MR SPEAKER: Please withdraw, Mr Berry; I think you are under stress.
Mr Berry: Mr Speaker, if I withdraw, it would have the imputation that you were bad for them and I would not like to say that you were bad for anybody.
MR SPEAKER: Thank you for that. I want an unqualified withdrawal, please, Mr Berry. Would you please withdraw the comment.
Mr Berry: Mr Speaker, if you are asking me to move a vote of confidence in you, then that is something I would have some difficulty with; but I will withdraw the imputation.
MR SPEAKER: Order! You have not complied with the request.
Mr Berry: I withdraw any imputation.
MR SPEAKER: Thank you.
MR KAINE (Chief Minister): Mr Speaker, I seek leave to make a ministerial statement in connection with the report on the assets and liabilities of the Territory.
Leave not granted.
Suspension of Standing and Temporary Orders
MR KAINE (Chief Minister) (3.13): Mr Speaker, I move:
That so much of the standing and temporary orders be suspended as would prevent Mr Kaine from making a ministerial statement on the report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Assets and Public Debt of the ACT.
I must say it is unheard of for a Minister to be refused permission.
MR BERRY (3.14): The reason why the Labor Opposition has opposed this is that the Labor Party wishes to extend question time. I got to my feet as quickly as possible to raise that issue but was prevented from doing so. We want to interrogate the Government further. This is a government that has shrunk at the thought of interrogation. Today was a grand example of the tactics that they use to ensure that they are not interrogated fully. It is the tradition of parliaments throughout the world that question time is a time when the Opposition can properly interrogate the Government and discover, for the purposes of the community, what the Government is on about.
Mr Speaker, today there were 11 questions answered by the Government. I can recall, and I am sure the Chief Minister
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