Page 1822 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 1 May 1991
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community. This Attorney-General is clearly standing in the way of it for no good reason. If there was a good reason, he would lay it on the table in this place. He would have the courage, he would have the guts, to lay it on the table in this place so that we could debate it. But he has no good reason. He is not going to put it on the table. That is the truth of the matter, no matter what is said from the other side. It is clearly avoidance of the real issues. We want to see the amendments that the Attorney-General thinks are necessary. We want to see the sort of rewrite that the Attorney-General thinks is necessary. It is all a furphy; that is what it is. It is all another Bernard Collaery furphy, and another demonstration of Mr Collaery being everything to all people.
MR SPEAKER: I ask you to withdraw "furphy" in the interpretation that it can be a lie. I ask you to withdraw that.
Mr Connolly: It is a fine piece of Australian tradition.
MR SPEAKER: It may well be, but it is misused in this chamber. Whenever I allow any leniency, it is misused.
Ms Follett: It does not mean a lie; it is a red herring.
MR SPEAKER: It is also interpreted as a lie.
Mr Berry: Is "red herring" a lie, too?
MR SPEAKER: It can well be interpreted so, and I ask you to withdraw it.
Ms Follett: Are you going to let him have "red herring"?
MR SPEAKER: I ask you to withdraw "furphy".
Mr Berry: It is a furphy, it is a red herring; it is being deliberately constructed to mislead. They are all the same.
MR SPEAKER: Mr Berry, please withdraw "furphy".
Mr Berry: All right. I do not believe this. One cannot criticise the Government.
MR SPEAKER: People take the Chair's interpretation when leniency is allowed and then carry it to the extreme.
Mr Connolly: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: The Macquarie Dictionary defines "furphy" as a rumour or a false story. If the Opposition cannot say that things are false, we have the position that it is only parliamentary for us to come into this chamber and say, "What a good government we have; aren't they wonderful". Surely this must be a position that is allowable. I challenge you to give any example in any other parliament where "furphy" has been declared unparliamentary.
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