Page 4304 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 20 November 1990
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Mr Berry: On a point of order - - -
MR SPEAKER: Mr Berry, he really has not started yet.
Mr Berry: He is talking about Mr Moore more than the Estimates Committee.
MR SPEAKER: Please get to the point, Mr Collaery.
Mr Berry: You seem to be wasting your time, Mr Collaery.
MR SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr Berry, for your observation. Please start on your point, Mr Collaery.
MR COLLAERY: I refer to paragraph 2.11 of the Estimates Committee report on the Appropriation Bill, and I refer to comments in relation to overseas travel. The comment is made that the issue came to light only as a result of the Estimates Committee hearings. Mr Connolly, in a somewhat unusual statement, accused the Ministers of junketeering in the context of that issue that was raised in the Estimates Committee report. So it is quite proper that the Ministers should respond to that issue. It is entirely relevant, but Mr Berry does not want us to have the right of response. He never allowed that in his firemen's union; he does not want to allow it here.
Mr Berry: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: that is a clear imputation.
MR SPEAKER: Order! I am not sure what was imputed.
Mr Berry: It is hardly likely that you will find out with this rabble. There was an imputation that something in my past life was done in an untoward way. It struck me that there was some sort of an imputation that I had done something that was extremely bad in my former career. I think those sorts of imputations ought to be withdrawn.
MR SPEAKER: I do not believe that is a valid objection, Mr Berry. I really do not think it was that serious.
MR COLLAERY: Mr Connolly referred to Ministers of the Crown junketeering. He must have known what he meant when he said that. He is legally trained. It is a very serious allegation, and he chose to make it during this debate in the context of travel. He also said in that debate that the Follett Government had spent $7,000 on travel and that this Government has spent a considerably larger sum. Well it should have, Mr Speaker, subject to the constraints that the Chief Minister places on it, because this Government, unlike the Follett Government, has taken its proper place at ministerial meetings throughout the country.
Those ministerial meetings involve the arrangements that all governments in this country, of whatever political complexion, make to secure the agreements, the protocols and the shares of revenue that make this Federation work.
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