Page 4925 - Week 17 - Tuesday, 11 December 1990
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MR SPEAKER: Order! You are allowed to debate the point of order, but not the substance, per se.
Dr Kinloch: Am I allowed to make any comment in general?
MR SPEAKER: You can seek leave to make a personal explanation.
Dr Kinloch: There are some errors of fact, Mr Speaker. I seek leave to make a personal explanation.
Leave granted.
DR KINLOCH: Thank you. I very much respect Mr Berry's concern for the proprieties of this chamber. Over the period from May 1989 to the present, I have been very concerned about that and I have already apologised for a temporary breach, from my point of view, of that propriety, which I do fairly believe has been exaggerated. Furthermore, I would welcome Mr Berry quoting, in full, my apology. It was not to say that I was violent; it was to say: if that is the way I was perceived to be, I do indeed regret it, because that is not what I intended.
I would like to move on to other matters. It is quite untrue that I smashed up a model of a casino. That is what the press said. It was an incorrect statement. At the time, I did not pursue it. You are very welcome to talk to Roger Smeed about that. What I did was to pick up that part of a model which was the casino in a larger model and remove it. That is what I did. For that I paid $60 and I apologised.
I regret that I am not a saint, Mr Speaker. I apologise to the Opposition that I am not a saintly person; I am a very normal person. I wish most to apologise to my fellow Quakers. At the Quaker meeting on Sunday I said that there were usually two kinds of people who joined the Society of Friends. There were those who recognised in themselves certain influences, theological views, et cetera, and found themselves in a community that was peaceful and loving. For others of us, I believe, we join the Society of Friends because we recognise in ourselves deep moods, sometimes, of aggression where we do not fully live up to the obligation to live in love and peace and we try, not always adequately, to follow through that kind of concept, which is put forward in a way which one hopes to live up to.
I have already apologised. I immediately regretted the moment I went beyond what were the bounds of propriety, of walking down to that desk. As I have said to Mrs Grassby, to whom I apologised, I do not myself recognise that I shook fists or did anything of that sort. I do not recognise that. I do not remember doing that. If it happened that way, that is your perception and I will not quarrel with it.
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