Page 1931 - Week 06 - Thursday, 2 May 1991
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Mr Jensen: Mr Speaker, it would seem to me that Mr Berry is making an assessment or a statement that Mr Humphries has misled the Assembly. If he wishes to do that, he should provide an appropriate motion for this Assembly to debate; otherwise he should keep his trap shut.
MR SPEAKER: Or words to that effect, Mr Jensen.
Mr Humphries: On the same point of order, Mr Speaker. The claim that a Minister, in particular, has misled the Assembly is very serious.
Mr Berry: I did not have to make it. It is on the record.
Mr Humphries: He has made the claim. He has said that a Minister has misled the Assembly. There are occasions when one makes a statement about whatever it might be - level 4 nurses or schools closing or something of that kind - which is a statement of the Government, something serious and substantive, in which it could be said that the Minister ought to exercise due care in what he or she says. In this case I made a quite irrelevant statement about the source of a question in question time yesterday, apparently of absolutely no significance whatsoever.
For Mr Berry now to make in the Assembly the claim, which stands on the record, that I misled the Assembly is, I think, an abuse of that particular term. It is a gross distortion. To mislead is deliberate and culpable and cannot be compared with a mistake of this kind. I think Mr Berry should be asked to withdraw that statement.
Mr Berry: I think Mr Humphries has got it wrong. Mr Speaker, I have made the claim that it is on the record. That claim will be borne out by the record - no more than that.
Mr Kaine: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: That is not what Mr Berry said, and the record will show that it is not what he said.
Mr Berry: I said that it is on the record that Mr Humphries misled the place.
MR SPEAKER: Order! Mr Berry, you have not been given the call. Mr Berry, my interpretation of what is proceeding before us is that you intended to state that it was an inadvertent misleading, as agreed to by Mr Humphries. He admitted that he had made an error.
Mr Duby: He made an error; he did not mislead. There is a vast difference.
MR SPEAKER: That is right. I would ask you to withdraw the imputation that you have put before us.
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