Page 4839 - Week 16 - Thursday, 29 November 1990
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MR BERRY: I will just point out something from the document to you. Obviously the Chief Minister has not read it. He has not read the thing. He pretends to know a little bit about these things; but if he turns to page 12 of the tabled document, under the heading "Religious or political conviction", clause 12 states:
For the purposes of this Act, a person (in this subsection called the "discriminator") -
I did not say anything about Mr Humphries -
discriminates against another person (in this subsection called the "aggrieved person") on the ground of religious or political conviction if, by reason of -
(a) the religious or political conviction of the aggrieved person - - -
Mr Kaine: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I again assert that there is nothing in there that talks about nurses and alleged discrimination against nurses, which Mr Berry is trying to put forward as his argument.
MR BERRY: He has got it wrong.
MR SPEAKER: Somewhere along the line we will detect what this is about, I am sure.
Mr Kaine: I doubt it.
MR BERRY: I doubt it too, because the interjections will keep coming, thick and strong, because there is, as I said a moment ago, a certain brittleness in the people opposite. I have to repeat this because it takes a little while to sink in amongst those opposite. (Quorum formed)
The point is, Mr Speaker, that under this legislation the reported threats of discrimination against nurses, as were reported to have occurred in relation to the new obstetrics wing, would have been unlawful. What I am saying to you is that I think it is quite appropriate that mention of those facts should be made in the course of this debate.
The fact of the matter is that it was a great surprise to me when the Minister jumped up and supported it so much because the sorts of things that have been reported about his administration would have been unlawful. I would have been a little bit careful about supporting something that would have put one in an embarrassing position so quickly. I would recommend to the Minister that in future, before he jumps up in support of these sorts of things, he have a little read of them. Obviously the Chief Minister has not, and the Minister for Health has not, otherwise he would have noted that protection for those nurses was provided for under the legislation. I would have been very quiet about it because it would have invited debate about what is going on in his department.
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