Page 762 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 12 March 1991
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This amendment seeks to do nothing but distort the real issues. It fails to address truthfully all of the issues which are relevant to the censure debate. Mr Deputy Speaker, this Minister deserves to be censured. On his own admission, if he did it wrong he ought to be sacked; therefore, he must be censured. It is about time that the Chief Minister woke up and did his job and sacked this Minister.
MR HUMPHRIES (Minister for Health, Education and the Arts): Mr Speaker, I seek leave to make a personal explanation under standing order 46 - - -
MR SPEAKER: Do you claim to have been misrepresented?
MR HUMPHRIES: I do, Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER: Please proceed.
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, in Mr Berry's comments just completed, he attacked a document circulated from my office and headed, "Budget Difficulties in the Health Portfolio".
Mr Berry: Why did you not sign it?
MR HUMPHRIES: It was not meant to be for public consumption, Mr Berry.
Mr Berry: It has been handed out by somebody from your office.
MR HUMPHRIES: That may be. That is probably your doing more than anybody else's.
Mr Speaker, Mr Berry attacked the assertion made in the statement which was prepared under my direction, that there was a $2.5m budget blow-out in the first quarter of 1989-90, and that it would have come to a total of $10m if unchecked throughout the year. Mr Speaker, I quote from a letter to Mr Wayne Berry, Minister for Community Services and Health, from the chairman of the Interim Board of Directors, Mr Ian Meikle, and dated 27 October 1989. It states:
Year-to-date operating expenditure -
this is referring to the hospital budget -
is $39.1m which is $2.5m over the monthly pro-rata allocation of available funds.
Whilst continuation of over-spending at the same rate - - -
Mr Berry: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: Mr Humphries sought to make a personal statement and an explanation. What he is doing is redoing the whole speech.
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