Page 1963 - Week 07 - Thursday, 31 May 1990
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This is a particular issue that began way back in 1978. The discussion paper that gave rise to this legislation coming in next week was born back in 1978. Ever since then there has been the question: who is going to pass the Bill? The Alliance!
The reality is that this is the situation. We have seen a long period during which this issue has progressed and it is only now coming to fruition. Mr Berry seems to think that his short stewardship of the health portfolio gives him some right to see this thing all the way through to the end. He does not understand the processes of a democracy, obviously. He has referred to the fact that the Government did prevent his drafting a private member's Bill, using public resources, along the same lines as the Bill being drafted by the Government. I think that a simple explanation of what occurred will indicate very clearly that to have taken up Mr Berry's suggestion that there be two Bills in almost identical form drafted by the same drafting section would have been an absolute and utter waste of the public money that Mr Berry, obviously, is so happy to squander.
Mr Berry: Where is yours?
MR HUMPHRIES: If you had been listening when I made the statement, Mr Berry, you would have heard what has happened to the Bill.
Mr Berry: Tell us again.
MR HUMPHRIES: No. If you were not listening you can listen some other time. You read the Hansard.
The drafting of two identical Bills is obviously a waste of valuable public resources, and that is why the Government declined to allow Mr Berry to draft his Bill at the same time as an identical Government Bill was being drafted. I also wonder, Mr Speaker, where the drafting instructions that Mr Berry issued to the Government drafter on those occasions came from. I wonder whether he used information that came into his hands as a Government Minister in order to supply those drafting instructions. I, of course, have not seen those instructions - they are confidential in terms of what Mr Berry's Bill would have said - but I just wonder where that information would have come from. I see he remains silent on the subject. Probably silence is an admission of guilt in this situation.
Mr Berry: If you give me leave to speak again I will tell you.
MR HUMPHRIES: You do not normally require leave to interject, Mr Berry.
Mr Berry referred to a six-month delay. There is no six-month delay. The difference between the time that he would have brought his Bill in had he been in Government and the
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