Page 802 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 12 March 1991
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Mr Berry: I take a point of order. I think there was a very clear imputation. There was a very clear imputation that something I had said was treasonous, was an act of - - -
MR DUBY: Come on! Mr Speaker, the simple fact is - - -
MR SPEAKER: Order!
Mr Duby: What is the point of order?
Mr Berry: The fact of the matter is that I will not be shoved. I want to express my point of order. He impugned my character by suggesting that I would have liked more casualties on the allied side. That is completely untrue and that must be withdrawn.
MR SPEAKER: Order! That is not an unparliamentary statement. It is not - - -
Mr Connolly: It is treason.
MR SPEAKER: Order! It is not a point of order.
Mr Berry: It is an imputation.
MR SPEAKER: You may make a personal explanation if you wish.
Mr Connolly: To say that he wants Australian servicemen dead is an outrageous thing to say.
MR SPEAKER: Of course. He did not. It may be outrageous, but it is not a parliamentary point of order. You may have the floor as soon as Mr Duby is finished.
MR DUBY: I am not for one minute suggesting that that is Mr Berry's wish. What I am suggesting is that the way Mr Berry expressed his sentiments implied that somehow there was something wrong with the system where substantial casualties were suffered on one side of a conflict and few casualties were suffered on another. His suggestion was that that somehow was not a good result; and that is simply not the case. That is a good result from our point of view, from the homes and hearts of people in Australia and on the allied side.
What Mr Berry seems to forget in this matter is that many people who were on the allied side of this conflict suffered substantial casualties. Of the 300,000 or so Kuwaiti citizens, something like 20 per cent of the people of that country that was invaded no longer are with us. They are prisoners in Iraq, or they have been killed, or they have been raped or they have been brutalised.
Whilst I am at the point of refuting the things that Mr Berry said, it strikes me that the only reason he took on the problem of what I thought was a quite reasonable
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