Page 1985 - Week 07 - Thursday, 31 May 1990
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MR SPEAKER: I agree with that. Mr Berry, you had your turn. Please proceed, Mr Humphries.
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, I did not accept that there should be a union representative on the committee, which is a committee to do with health promotion. I accept that there is some connection, some link one could make, between health promotion and the union movement but there is also in the same regard a connection that could be made between health promotion and many other aspects of our community.
One could equally argue that there should be a link between health promotion and youth; health promotion and women; health promotion and the home; health promotion and consumers; health promotion and food; health promotion and transport. All those sorts of issues could be raised. Indeed, if I were to appoint a union representative to the committee on the basis of what Mr Berry said, I would also presumably be compelled to appoint an employer representative, because the same workplace issues that affect unionists also affect employment and employers.
In the circumstances, it is impossible to completely reproduce all the possible permutations on a small committee. It was, therefore, the case that I did not accept that piece of advice from Mr Berry. If he believes that all the advice that he tenders to me must be accepted in full or I have not appeared to be consulting, I am afraid he will find that on many occasions on those terms I am not going to consult. It is obvious that the standard he sets for this Government is considerably higher than the standard he set for himself when he was a Minister in the Follett Government. In the entire time that he was a Minister, I was consulted only once on any appointments he proposed to make. I do not believe any other members of this Assembly were consulted on any wider basis than that. If he now complains about the quality of consultation he is receiving, I think he ought to ask himself just what standards he set for himself while he was in office.
Mr Berry: I did not misrepresent what I was doing. I had no intention of consulting.
MR HUMPHRIES: Well, an admission!
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Assembly adjourned at 5.13 pm until Tuesday, 5 June 1990, at 2.30 pm
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