Page 5037 - Week 17 - Tuesday, 11 December 1990
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Mr Berry: There was mine.
MR SPEAKER: Order!
MR KAINE: "Big Ears" was there. He did not even want to be there; that was the trouble. Since we are talking about distorting the facts, I want to refer to an incident that took place at the ACT-New South Wales forum when this member opposite deliberately distorted the truth and made a statement to the effect that this Government was reducing the number of beds in our public hospitals. That was a deliberate distortion of the truth, and Mr Berry knows it. He has the effrontery to come in here and talk about distorting the truth. Mr Berry would not know the truth if he fell over it.
Mr Berry: You are reducing services to the people of New South Wales.
MR SPEAKER: Order, Mr Berry! Mr Berry, please!
Mr Moore: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: what about giving him an order. On a number of occasions that man has not sat down.
MR SPEAKER: Order, Mr Moore!
MR KAINE: We will carry on a debate about distorting the truth, if that is what Mr Berry wants. I would submit that, if he has the nerve to turn up to the next meeting, the members of the ACT-New South Wales Consultative Forum will take issue with him over that. Of course, he will not have the nerve to turn up to the next one. We will then see who is distorting the truth and who is not.
The other fact that emerges from this debate is that Mr Berry might do a lot of talking, but he is not the slightest bit interested in getting the road fixed. All he wants to do is make a cheap political point. If he had any conviction at all about the Kings Highway, and if he really wanted to do something for this community, he would join with this Government and the Government of New South Wales in going to the Commonwealth Parliament and putting the argument that something needs to be done about it. He will not do that. He will sit over there. He will distort the truth. He will misrepresent the truth. He will hide behind his ideology and he will do nothing, as he did nothing when he was a Minister in the former Government, and he has done nothing since he has been sitting here in opposition.
Mr Berry: I will not be accused of vandalism, like your Minister.
MR SPEAKER: Order!
MR KAINE: Your days of vandalism are over, mate. You will not get another opportunity to vandalise anything sitting there in opposition, which is right where you belong. You
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