Page 4145 - Week 14 - Thursday, 25 October 1990
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MR HUMPHRIES: I seek leave.
Mr Berry: You are not getting it until you move for the suspension of standing orders.
MR HUMPHRIES: All right. Mr Speaker, I move:
That so much of the standing and temporary orders be suspended as would prevent Mr Humphries from making a statement concerning comments made by Mr Berry to the Assembly on 23 October 1990.
MR BERRY (3.08): Mr Speaker, this is just another of those issues where the Government has refused to give the - - -
Mr Kaine: We have touched a raw nerve, have we, Wayne?
MR BERRY: No, no; it does not bother me at all. The fact of the matter is that it is another example of the Government's arrogance in not drawing the attention of the Opposition to matters which it wishes to put before this house and which are not on the order of business for the day. In all cases, as I have indicated before, leave will not be granted unless appropriate notice is given. That is the reason why the Opposition has refused to give - - -
Mr Jensen: That is not so, because you will not - - -
MR SPEAKER: Order, Mr Jensen!
MR BERRY: In all cases the Opposition will resist that because of the lack of notice. There has been an awakening amongst the Government in recent times that it is better for them to seek leave and to give notice, and they have done so in recent times in relation to ministerial statements. When it comes to the substantive issue that Mr Humphries chooses to put before this place today, I suggest, Mr Speaker, that the appropriate way to deal with that is probably by way of a censure motion - the way that anybody else would have to pursue it - but I will raise that as a point of order when the matter is raised by Mr Humphries.
MR HUMPHRIES (Minister for Health, Education and the Arts) (3.10), in reply: Mr Speaker, Mr Berry will recall that on the previous occasion on which he raised a matter of a Minister misleading the Assembly he did so in exactly the same fashion; by means of a statement, not by means of a censure motion. For that reason I consider it appropriate that we suspend standing orders to hear my statement.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
MR HUMPHRIES (Minister for Health, Education and the Arts) (3.11): Mr Speaker, on Tuesday I was asked to withdraw a statement in the Assembly. I had said that Mr Berry had told an untruth to the Assembly. At the time I said that I
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